Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

Now, the mortality being over, this same fellow who had crept into the holy tub, having a large piece of ground, chanced to be sowing it with white winter wheat at the very minute of an hour that a kind of a silly sucking devil, who could not yet write or read, or hail and thunder, unless it were on parsley or coleworts, and got leave of his master Lucifer to go into this island of Pope-figs, where the devils were very familiar with the men and women, and often went to take their pastime.

The countryman sold off his corn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a demi-buskin which was fastened to his girdle. But the devil a sou the devils took; far from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts.

In the middle of July the devil came to the place aforesaid with all his crew at his heels, a whole choir of the younger fry of hell; and having met the farmer, said to him, Well, clodpate, how hast thou done since I went? Thou and I must share the concern. Ay, master devil, quoth the clown; it is but reason we should. Then he and his men began to cut and reap the corn; and, on the other side, the devil's imps fell to work, grubbing up and pulling out the stubble by the root. The countryman had his corn thrashed, winnowed it, put in into sacks, and went with it to market. The same did the devil's servants, and sat them down there by the man to sell their straw. The countryman sold off his corn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a demi-buskin which was fastened to his girdle. But the devil a sou the devils took; far from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts.

If a man would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow it with radish.

If a man would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow it with radish. Now, cried the devil, thou talkest like an honest fellow, bumpkin. Well, sow me good store of radish, I'll see and keep them safe from storms, and will not hail a bit on them. But hark ye me, this time I bespeak for my share what shall be above ground; what's under shall be thine. Drudge on, looby, drudge on. I am going to tempt heretics; their souls are dainty victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered. My Lord Lucifer has the griping in the guts; they'll make a dainty warm dish for his honour's maw. When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in the field, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and finding there the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the leaves of the radishes. After him the farmer with his spade dug up the radishes, and clapped them up into pouches. This done, the devil, the farmer, and their gangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer presently made good money of his radishes; but the poor devil took nothing; nay, what was worse, he was made a common laughing-stock by the gaping hoidens.

Did you ever see him? He that is, returned Pantagruel, according to our theological doctrine, is God, who said to Moses, I am that I am. We never saw him, nor can he be beheld by mortal eyes.

How! cried they, our sacred decretals inform us that there never is more than one living.

We mean nothing less than that supreme God who rules in heaven, replied they; we mean the god on earth. Did you ever see him? Upon my honour, replied Carpalin, they mean the pope. Ay, ay, answered Panurge; yea, verily, gentlemen, I have seen three of them, whose sight has not much bettered me. How! cried they, our sacred decretals inform us that there never is more than one living. I mean successively, one after the other, returned Panurge; otherwise I never saw more than one at a time.

Homenas then said to us: 'Tis enjoined us by our holy decretals to visit churches first and taverns after.

In like manner the sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand of an angel of the cherubim kind.

Homenas then said to us, The law was formerly given to the Jews by Moses, written by God himself. At Delphos, before the portal of Apollo's temple, this sentence, GNOTHI SEAUTON, was found written with a divine hand. And some time after it, EI was also seen, and as divinely written and transmitted from heaven. Cybele's image was brought out of heaven, into a field called Pessinunt, in Phrygia; so was that of Diana to Tauris, if you will believe Euripides; the oriflamme, or holy standard, was transmitted out of heaven to the noble and most Christian kings of France, to fight against the unbelievers. In the reign of Numa Pompilius, second King of the Romans, the famous copper buckler called Ancile was seen to descend from heaven. At Acropolis, near Athens, Minerva's statue formerly fell from the empyreal heaven. In like manner the sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand of an angel of the cherubim kind. You outlandish people will hardly believe this, I fear. Little enough, of conscience, said Panurge. And then, continued Homenas, they were miraculously transmitted to us here from the very heaven of heavens; in the same manner as the river Nile is called Diipetes by Homer, the father of all philosophy—the holy decretals always excepted.

The hour of midday is past, and after it our sacred decretals forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawful mass.

Oh! how wonderfully, if you read but one demi-canon, short paragraph, or single observation of these sacrosanct decretals, how wonderfully, I say, do you not perceive to kindle in your hearts a furnace of divine love, charity towards your neighbour (provided he be no heretic), bold contempt of all casual and sublunary things, firm content in all your affections, and ecstatic elevation of soul even to the third heaven.

At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an old Clementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were cut on them were utterly spoiled and lost;

At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an old Clementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were cut on them were utterly spoiled and lost; gowns, hoods, cloaks, cassocks, jerkins, jackets, waistcoats, capes, doublets, petticoats, corps de robes, farthingales, and so forth. Snip, thinking to cut a hood, would cut you out a codpiece; instead of a cassock he would make you a high-crowned hat; for a waistcoat he'd shape you out a rochet; on the pattern of a doublet he'd make you a thing like a frying-pan. Then his journeymen having stitched it up did jag it and pink it at the bottom, and so it looked like a pan to fry chestnuts. Instead of a cape he made a buskin; for a farthingale he shaped a montero cap; and thinking to make a cloak, he'd cut out a pair of your big out-strouting Swiss breeches, with panes like the outside of a tabor. Insomuch that Snip was condemned to make good the stuffs to all his customers; and to this day poor Cabbage's hair grows through his hood and his arse through his pocket-holes. Mark, an effect of heavenly wrath and vengeance! cried Homenas.

I would, said Epistemon, it had cost me a pint of the best tripe that ever can enter into gut, so we had but compared with the original the dreadful chapters,

I would, said Epistemon, it had cost me a pint of the best tripe that ever can enter into gut, so we had but compared with the original the dreadful chapters, Execrabilis, De multa, Si plures; De annatis per totum; Nisi essent; Cum ad monasterium; Quod delectio; Mandatum; and certain others, that draw every year out of France to Rome four hundred thousand ducats and more. Do you make nothing of this? asked Homenas. Though, methinks, after all, it is but little, if we consider that France, the most Christian, is the only nurse the see of Rome has. However, find me in the whole world a book, whether of philosophy, physic, law, mathematics, or other humane learning, nay, even, by my God, of the Holy Scripture itself, will draw as much money thence? None, none, psha, tush, blurt, pish; none can. You may look till your eyes drop out of your head, nay, till doomsday in the afternoon, before you can find another of that energy; I'll pass my word for that.

Yet these devilish heretics refuse to learn and know it.

Yet these devilish heretics refuse to learn and know it. Burn 'em, tear 'em, nip 'em with hot pincers, drown 'em, hang 'em, spit 'em at the bunghole, pelt 'em, paut 'em, bruise 'em, beat 'em, cripple 'em, dismember 'em, cut 'em, gut 'em, bowel 'em, paunch 'em, thrash 'em, slash 'em, gash 'em, chop 'em, slice 'em, slit 'em, carve 'em, saw 'em, bethwack 'em, pare 'em, hack 'em, hew 'em, mince 'em, flay 'em, boil 'em, broil 'em, roast 'em, toast 'em, bake 'em, fry 'em, crucify 'em, crush 'em, squeeze 'em, grind 'em, batter 'em, burst 'em, quarter 'em, unlimb 'em, behump 'em, bethump 'em, belam 'em, belabour 'em, pepper 'em, spitchcock 'em, and carbonade 'em on gridirons, these wicked heretics! decretalifuges, decretalicides, worse than homicides, worse than patricides, decretalictones of the devil of hell.

I will discover you a great secret. The universities of your world have commonly a book, either open or shut, in their arms and devices; what book do you think it is? Truly, I do not know, answered Pantagruel; I never read it. It is the decretals, said Homenas, without which the privileges of all universities would soon be lost. You must own that I have taught you this; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Vivat, cried Epistemon, fifat, bibat, pipat.

And if they were painted in other parts of your house, by jingo, you would presently conskite yourself wherever you saw them.

Pray, why is it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as they were in the days of yore?

Indefatigable topers, and you, thrice precious martyrs of the smock, give me leave to put a serious question to your worships while you are idly striking your codpieces, and I myself not much better employed. Pray, why is it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as they were in the days of yore? Sot is an old word that signifies a dunce, dullard, jolthead, gull, wittol, or noddy, one without guts in his brains, whose cockloft is unfurnished, and, in short, a fool. Now would I know whether you would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed you logically may, that formerly men were fools and in this generation are grown wise? How many and what dispositions made them fools? How many and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise? Why were they fools? How should they be wise? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly fools? How did you find that they are now wise? Who the devil made 'em fools? Who a God's name made 'em wise? Who d'ye think are most, those that loved mankind foolish, or those that love it wise? How long has it been wise? How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the foregoing folly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did the old folly end now, and no later? Why did the modern wisdom begin now, and no sooner? What were we the worse for the former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom? How should the ancient folly be come to nothing? How should this same new wisdom be started up and established?

Yet to give some light into the business, I'll e'en tell you what had been anciently foretold in the matter by a venerable doctor, who, being moved by the spirit in a prophetic vein, wrote a book ycleped the Prelatical Bagpipe.

Yet to give some light into the business, I'll e'en tell you what had been anciently foretold in the matter by a venerable doctor, who, being moved by the spirit in a prophetic vein, wrote a book ycleped the Prelatical Bagpipe. What d'ye think the old fornicator saith? Hearken, you old noddies, hearken now or never. The jubilee's year, when all like fools were shorn, Is about thirty supernumerary. O want of veneration! fools they seemed, But, persevering, with long breves, at last No more they shall be gaping greedy fools. For they shall shell the shrub's delicious fruit, Whose flower they in the spring so much had feared. Now you have it, what do you make on't? The seer is ancient, the style laconic, the sentences dark like those of Scotus, though they treat of matters dark enough in themselves. The best commentators on that good father take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that are included in this present age till 1550 (there being but one jubilee every fifty years). Men shall no longer be thought fools next green peas season.

The fools, whose number, as Solomon certifies, is infinite, shall go to pot like a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are;

The fools, whose number, as Solomon certifies, is infinite, shall go to pot like a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are; and all manner of folly shall have an end, that being also numberless, according to Avicenna, maniae infinitae sunt species.

He added that he had been told by Robert Valbringue, who lately passed that way in his return from Africa, that a sixth kind was to fly hither out of hand, which he called capus-hawks, more grum, vinegar-faced, brain-sick, froward, and loathsome than any kind whatsoever in the whole island. Africa, said Pantagruel, still uses to produce some new and monstrous thing.

Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by the cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by the priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly know whence you have these same clerg-hawks.

Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by the cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by the priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly know whence you have these same clerg-hawks. They are all of them passengers, or travelling birds, returned Aedituus, and come hither from t'other world; part out of a vast country called Want-o'-bread, the rest out of another toward the west, which they style Too-many-of-' em. From these two countries flock hither, every year, whole legions of these clerg-hawks, leaving their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations. This happens when there are too many children, whether male or female, in some good family of the latter country; insomuch that the house would come to nothing if the paternal estate were shared among them all (as reason requires, nature directs, and God commands). For this cause parents use to rid themselves of that inconveniency by packing off the younger fry, and forcing them to seek their fortune in this isle Bossart (Crooked Island). I suppose he means L'Isle Bouchart, near Chinon, cried Panurge. No, replied t'other, I mean Bossart (Crooked), for there is not one in ten among them but is either crooked, crippled, blinking, limping, ill-favoured, deformed, or an unprofitable load to the earth

Those trees seemed to us terrestrial animals, in no wise so different from brute beasts as not to have skin, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, kernels, bones, marrow, humours, matrices, brains, and articulations; for they certainly have some, since Theophrastus will have it so.

Consequently let all manner of perturbation abdicate the ventricles of your brains, if anyone has invaded them while they were contemplating what is transacted by my domestic ministers.

I was also at a loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could so suddenly know what every different note meant;

Each band had its musicians, eight on each side, dressed in its livery; the one with orange-coloured damask, the other with white; and all played on different instruments most melodiously and harmoniously, still varying in time and measure as the figure of the dance required. This seemed to me an admirable thing, considering the numerous diversity of steps, back-steps, bounds, rebounds, jerks, paces, leaps, skips, turns, coupes, hops, leadings, risings, meetings, flights, ambuscadoes, moves, and removes. I was also at a loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could so suddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner heard this or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which was denoted by the music, though their motions were all different. For the nymphs that stood in the first file, as if they designed to begin the fight, marched straight forwards to their enemies from square to square, unless it were the first step, at which they were free to move over two steps at once. They alone never fall back (which is not very natural to other nymphs), and if any of them is so lucky as to advance to the opposite king's row, she is immediately crowned queen of her king, and after that moves with the same state and in the same manner as the queen; but till that happens they never strike their enemies but forwards, and obliquely in a diagonal line. However, they make it not their chief business to take their foes; for, if they did, they would leave their queen exposed to the adverse parties, who then might take her.

The two companies having taken their stations, the music struck up, and with a martial sound, which had something of horrid in it, like a point of war, roused and alarmed both parties, who now began to shiver, and then soon were warmed with warlike rage; and having got in readiness to fight desperately, impatient of delay stood waiting for the charge.

This being heard, the music of both parties loudly proclaimed the victory. And thus the first battle ended to the unspeakable joy of all the spectators.

and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, would have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus, the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though he abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man.

While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps and episemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking of their enemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, would have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus, the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though he abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man. For who could have forborne? seeing those young warriors, with their nymphs and queens, so briskly and gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly, vault, caper, move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so swiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched one another but methodically.

We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing.

We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing. The ways there are animals; so true is Aristotle's saying, that all self-moving things are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they are then animals. Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; others are highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived that the travellers and inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go? Whither does that way go? Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish church, to the city, to the river, and so forth. Being thus in their right way, they used to reach their journey's end without any further trouble, just like those who go by water from Lyons to Avignon or Arles.

Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing but ling-broth.

Well, friar, spare your breath to cool your porridge.

Then quoth Panurge, sneering, Of all, and of all, commend me to Ball; this is the friar of the world for my money. You've heard how short, concise, and compendious he is in his answers. Nothing is to be got out of him but monosyllables. By jingo, I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

more children are born in October and November than in the other ten months of the year, and reckoning backwards 'twill be easily found that they were all made, conceived, and begotten in Lent.

It would not a little surprise you, said Pantagruel, should a man tell you that the good pope who first ordered the keeping of Lent, perceiving that at that time o' year the natural heat (from the centre of the body, whither it was retired during the winter's cold) diffuses itself, as the sap does in trees, through the circumference of the members, did therefore in a manner prescribe that sort of diet to forward the propagation of mankind. What makes me think so, is that by the registers of christenings at Touars it appears that more children are born in October and November than in the other ten months of the year, and reckoning backwards 'twill be easily found that they were all made, conceived, and begotten in Lent.

Having pleased ourselves with observing that new order of Semiquaver Friars, we set sail, and in three days our skipper made the finest and most delightful island that ever was seen. He called it the island of Frieze, for all the ways were of frieze.

In that island is the land of Satin, so celebrated by our court pages.

In that island is the land of Satin, so celebrated by our court pages. Its trees and herbage never lose their leaves or flowers, and are all damask and flowered velvet. As for the beasts and birds, they are all of tapestry work. There we saw many beasts, birds on trees, of the same colour, bigness, and shape of those in our country; with this difference, however, that these did eat nothing, and never sung or bit like ours; and we also saw there many sorts of creatures which we never had seen before.

I saw one of them, which was attended with a throng of other wild beasts, purify a fountain with its horn.

I saw there two and thirty unicorns. They are a curst sort of creatures, much resembling a fine horse, unless it be that their heads are like a stag's, their feet like an elephant's, their tails like a wild boar's, and out of each of their foreheads sprouts out a sharp black horn, some six or seven feet long; commonly it dangles down like a turkey-cock's comb. When a unicorn has a mind to fight, or put it to any other use, what does it do but make it stand, and then 'tis as straight as an arrow. I saw one of them, which was attended with a throng of other wild beasts, purify a fountain with its horn. With that Panurge told me that his prancer, alias his nimble-wimble, was like the unicorn, not altogether in length indeed, but in virtue and propriety; for as the unicorn purified pools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other animals came and drank securely there afterwards, in the like manner others might water their nags, and dabble after him without fear of shankers, carnosities, gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other plagues caught by those who venture to quench their amorous thirst in a common puddle; for with his nervous horn he removed all the infection that might be lurking in some blind cranny of the mephitic sweet-scented hole.

I saw there the golden fleece formerly conquered by Jason, and can assure you, on the word of an honest man, that those who have said it was not a fleece but a golden pippin, because melon signifies both an apple and a sheep, were utterly mistaken.

I saw also a chameleon, such as Aristotle describes it, and like that which had been formerly shown me by Charles Maris, a famous physician of the noble city of Lyons on the Rhone; and the said chameleon lived on air just as the other did.

I saw also fourteen phoenixes.

I saw also fourteen phoenixes. I had read in many authors that there was but one in the whole world in every century; but, if I may presume to speak my mind, I declare that those who said this had never seen any, unless it were in the land of Tapestry; though 'twere vouched by Claudian or Lactantius Firmianus.

I saw some sphynges, some raphes, some ounces, and some cepphi, whose fore-feet are like hands and their hind-feet like man's.

I saw there some milched crawfish, creatures that I never had heard of before in my life. These moved in very good order, and 'twould have done your heart good to have seen 'em.

There I found Triton winding his silver shell instead of a horn, and also Glaucus, Proteus, Nereus, and a thousand other godlings and sea monsters.

We went a little higher up into the country of Tapestry, and saw the Mediterranean Sea open to the right and left down to the very bottom; just as the Red Sea very fairly left its bed at the Arabian Gulf to make a lane for the Jews when they left Egypt. There I found Triton winding his silver shell instead of a horn, and also Glaucus, Proteus, Nereus, and a thousand other godlings and sea monsters. I also saw an infinite number of fish of all kinds, dancing, flying, vaulting, fighting, eating, breathing, billing, shoving, milting, spawning, hunting, fishing, skirmishing, lying in ambuscado, making truces, cheapening, bargaining, swearing, and sporting.

In a blind corner we saw Aristotle holding a lantern in the posture in which the hermit uses to be drawn near St. Christopher, watching, prying, thinking, and setting everything down.

When we had long beheld everything in this land of Satin, Pantagruel said, I have sufficiently fed my eyes, but my belly is empty all this while, and chimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner.

When we had long beheld everything in this land of Satin, Pantagruel said, I have sufficiently fed my eyes, but my belly is empty all this while, and chimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner. Let's take care of the body lest the soul abdicate it; and to this effect let's taste some of these anacampserotes (' An herb, the touching of which is said to reconcile lovers.'—Motteux.) that hang over our heads. Psha, cried one, they are mere trash, stark naught, o' my word; they're good for nothing.

He had as many ears all over his head and the rest of his body as Argus formerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in his legs.

While we were looking up and down to find some more substantial food, we heard a loud various noise, like that of paper-mills (or women bucking of linen); so with all speed we went to the place whence the noise came, where we found a diminutive, monstrous, misshapen old fellow, called Hearsay. His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were seven tongues, each of them cleft into seven parts. However, he chattered, tattled, and prated with all the seven at once, of different matters, and in divers languages. He had as many ears all over his head and the rest of his body as Argus formerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in his legs.

Having been but scurvily entertained in the land of Satin, we went o' board, and having set sail, in four days came near the coast of Lantern-land. We then saw certain little hovering fires on the sea.

However, some of us were somewhat suspicious that these fires were the forerunners of some storm, but the skipper assured us again they were not.

We were conducted from that place to the palace by three obeliscolichnys ('A kind of beacons.'—Motteux.), military guards of the port, with high-crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of our voyage, and our design, which was to desire the queen of the country to grant us a lantern to light and conduct us during our voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.

Soon after we arrived at the port of Lantern-land, where Pantagruel discovered on a high tower the lantern of Rochelle, that stood us in good stead, for it cast a great light. We also saw the lantern of Pharos, that of Nauplion, and that of Acropolis at Athens, sacred to Pallas. Near the port there's a little hamlet inhabited by the Lychnobii, that live by lanterns, as the gulligutted friars in our country live by nuns; they are studious people, and as honest men as ever shit in a trumpet. Demosthenes had formerly lanternized there. We were conducted from that place to the palace by three obeliscolichnys (' A kind of beacons.'—Motteux.), military guards of the port, with high-crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of our voyage, and our design, which was to desire the queen of the country to grant us a lantern to light and conduct us during our voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.

Our glorious lantern lighting and directing us to heart's content, we at last arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle.

Our glorious lantern lighting and directing us to heart's content, we at last arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle. As soon as friend Panurge landed, he nimbly cut a caper with one leg for joy, and cried to Pantagruel, Now we are where we have wished ourselves long ago. This is the place we've been seeking with such toil and labour. He then made a compliment to our lantern, who desired us to be of good cheer, and not be daunted or dismayed whatever we might chance to see.

To come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle we were to go through a large vineyard, in which were all sorts of vines,

To come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle we were to go through a large vineyard, in which were all sorts of vines, as the Falernian, Malvoisian, the Muscadine, those of Taige, Beaune, Mirevaux, Orleans, Picardent, Arbois, Coussi, Anjou, Grave, Corsica, Vierron, Nerac, and others. This vineyard was formerly planted by the good Bacchus, with so great a blessing that it yields leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round, like the orange trees at Suraine.

You who presume to move this way, Get a good lantern, lest you stray.

On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zoophore, was the following couplet: You who presume to move this way, Get a good lantern, lest you stray. We took special care of that, cried Pantagruel when he had read them; for there is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in all Lantern-land.

I am no scholar, quoth Friar John, for which I'm heartily sorry, yet I find by my breviary that in the Revelation a woman was seen with the moon under her feet, which was a most wonderful sight. Now, as Bigot explained it to me, this was to signify that she was not of the nature of other women; for they have all the moon at their heads, and consequently their brains are always troubled with a lunacy. This makes me willing to believe what you said, dear Madam Lantern.