The third book of the works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick containing the heroick deeds of Pantagruel the son of Gargantua / now faithfully translated into English by the unimitable pen of Sir Thomas Urwhart.

CHAP. XXXIII. Rondibilis the Physician's Cure of Cuc∣koldry. (Book 33)

AT that time (quoth Randibilis) when Iupitur took a view of the state of his Olympick House and Family, and that he had made the Calender of all the Gods and Goddesses, appointing unto the Fe∣stival of every one of them its proper day and season, establishing certain fixed places and stations for the pronouncing of Oracles, and relief of travelling Pil∣grims, and ordaining Victims, Immolati∣ons and Sacrifices suitable and correspon∣dent to the Dignity and Nature of the worshipped and adored Deity. Did not he do (asked Panurge) therein, as Tintou∣ille the Bishop of Auxerre is said once to have done? This Noble Prelate loved entirely the pure Liquor of the Grape, as every honest and judicious Man doth; therefore was it that he had an especial care and regard to the Bud of the Vine∣tree, as to the great Grandfather of Bac∣chus,

But so it is, that for sundry Years together he saw a most pitiful Havock, Desolation and Destruction made amongst the Sprouts, Shootings, Buds, Blossoms and Sciens of the Vines by hoary Frosts, Dank-fogs, hot Mists, unseasonable Colds, chill Blasts, thick Hail, and other calami∣tous Chances of foul Weather happening, as he thought, by the dismal inauspicious∣ness of the Holy Days of St. George, St. Ma∣ry, St. Paul, St. Eutrope, Holy Rood, the As∣eension, and other Festivals, in that time when the Sun passeth under the Sign of Taurus; and thereupon harboured in his Mind this Opinion, that the afore-named Saints were Saint Hail-flingers, Saint Frost∣senders, Saint Fogmongers, and Saint Spoilers of the Vine-buds; for which cause be went about to have transmitted their Feasts from the Spring to the Win∣ter, to be Celebrated between Christmas and Epiphany, (so the Mother of the three Kings called it)▪ allowing them with all Honour and Reverence the liberty then to freeze, hail and rain as much as they would; for that he knew that at such a time Frost was rather profitable than hurtful to the Vine-buds, and in their steads to have placed the Festivals of St. Christopher, St. Iohn the Baptist, St. Mag∣dalene, St. Ann, St. Domingo, and St. Law∣rence;

yea, and to have gone so far as to collocate and transpose the middle of Au∣gust in, and to the beginning of May; because during the whole Space of their Solemnity, there was so little danger of hoary Frosts and cold Mists, that no Ar∣tificers are then held in greater Request, than the Afforder of refrigerating Inven∣tions, Makers of Junkets, fit Disposers of cooling Shades, Composers of green Ar∣bours, and Refreshers of Wine.

Iupiter (said Rondibilis) forgot the poor Devil Cuckoldry, who was then in the Court at Paris, very eagerly solliciting a pedling Suit at Law for one of his Vassals and Tenants; within some few days there∣after, (I have forgot how many) when he got full notice of the Trick, which in his Absence was done unto him, he in∣stantly desisted from prosecuting Legal Processes, in the behalf of others, full of Sollicitude to pursue after his own business, lest he should be fore-closed: And there∣upon he appeared personally at the Tri∣bunal of the great Iupiter, displayed be∣fore him the importance of his preceed∣ing Merits; together with the acceptable Services, which in Obedience to his Com∣mandments he had formerly performed; and therefore, in all humility, begged of him, that he would be pleased not to

leave him alone amongst all the Sacred Potentates, destitute and void of Honour, Reverence, Sacrifices and festival Cere∣monies. To this Petition Iupiter's Answer was excusatory, That all the Places and Offices of his House were bestowed. Ne∣vertheless so importuned was he by the continual Supplications of Monsieur Cuc∣koldry, that he, in fine, placed him in the Rank, List, Roll, Rubrick and Catalogue; and appointed Honours, Sacrifices and Fe∣stival Rites to be observed on Earth in great Devotion, and tendred to him with Solemnity.

The Feast, because there was no void, empty nor vacant place in all the Calen∣der, was to be celebrated jointly with, and on the same day that had been conse∣crated to the Goddess Iealousie: His Power and Dominion should be over Married Folks, especially such as had handsom Wives: His Sacrifices were to be Suspici∣on, Diffidence, Mistrust, a lowring powt∣ing Sullenness, Watchings, Wardings, Re∣searchings, Plyings, Explorations, toge∣ther with the Way-layings, Ambushes, narrow Observations, and malicious Dog∣gings of the Husband's Scouts and Espials of the most privy Actions of their Wives. Herewithal every married Man was ex∣presly and rigorously commanded to re∣verence,

honour and worship him; to ce∣lebrate and solemnize his Festival with twice more respect than that of another Saint or Deity, and to immolate unto him with all Sincerity and Alacrity of Heart the above-mentioned Sacrifices and Oblations, under pain of severe Censures, Threatnings, and Comminations of these subsequent Fines, Mulcts, Amerciaments, Penalties and Punishments to be inflicted on the Delinquents; that Monsieur Cuc∣koldry should never be favourable nor pro∣pitious to them; that he should never help, aid, supply, succour nor grant them any subventitious Furtherance, a••xiliary Suffrage, or adminiculary Assistance; that he should never hold in any Reckoning Account or Estimation; that he should never daign to enter within their Houses, neither at the Doors, Windows, nor any other place thereof; that he should never haunt nor frequent their Companies or Conversations; how frequently soever they should invocate him, and call upon his Name; and that not only he should leave and abandon them to rot alone with their Wives in a sempiternal Solitariness, without the benefit of the diversion of any Copesmate or Corrival at all; but should withal shun and eschew them, fly from them, and eternally forsake and re∣ject,

them as impious Hereticks and Sacri∣legious Persons, according to the accu∣stom'd manner of other Gods, towards such as are too slack in offering up the Duties and Reverences which ought to be performed respectively to their Divinities: As is evidently apparent in Bacchus to∣wards negligent Vine-dressers; in Ceres against idle Plow-men and Tillers of the Ground; in Pomona to unworthy Fruite∣rers and Custard-mongers; in Neptune towards dissolute Mariners and Sea-faring Men; in Vulcan towards loytering Smiths and Forge-men; and so throughout the rest.

Now, on the contrary, this infallible Promise was added, that unto all those who should make a Holy Day of the above∣recited Festival, and cease from all man∣ner of worldly Work and Negotiation, lay aside all their own most important occasions, and to be so wretchless, heedless, and careless of what might concern the management of their proper Affairs, as to mind nothing else but a suspicious espying and prying into the secret Deportments of their Wives, and how to koop, shut up, hold at under, and deal cruelly and au∣steerly with them, by all the Harshness and Hardships that an implacable, and every way inexorable Jealousie can de∣vise

and suggest, conform to the Sacred Ordinances of the afore-mentioned Sa∣crifices and Oblations, he should be con∣tinually favourable to them, should love them, sociably converse with them, should be Day and Night in their Houses, and never leave them destitute of his Presence. Now I have said, and you have heard my Cure.

Ha, ha, ha, (quoth Capalin laughing)▪ this is a remedy yet more apt and proper than Hans Carvel's Ring: The Devil take me if I do not believe it. The Humour, Inclination and Nature of Women is like the Thunder, whose Force in its Bolt, or otherways, burneth, bruiseth and break∣eth only hard, massive and resisting Ob∣jects, without staying or stopping at soft, empty and yielding matters: For it pash∣eth into pieces the Steel Sword, without doing any hurt to the Velvet Scabbard which insheatheth it: It rusheth also, and consumeth the Bones, without wounding or endammaging the Flesh, wherewith they are vailed and covered: Just so it is, that Women for the greater part never bend the Contention, Subtilty, and con∣tradictory Disposition of their Spirits, unless it be to do what is prohibited and forbidden.

Verily, (quoth Hippothadee) some of of our Doctors averr for a truth, that the first Woman of the World, whom the Hebrews call Eve, had hardly been indu∣ced or allured into the Temptation of eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Life, if it had not been forbidden her so to do. And that you may give the more Credit to the Validity of this Opinion, consider how the cautelous and wily Tempter did com∣memorate unto her, for an antecedent to his Enthymeme, the Prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It it forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it, else thou canst not be a Woman.