Rabelais exploits two adages of Erasmus: ‘YΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΝ (Hys Athenan), A Pig [teaching] Minerva’. That adage (I, I, XL) is to be read together with the one which follows it (I, I, XL, ‘A pig undertakes to fight Minerva’). Both were well known, meaning ‘To teach your grandmother how to suck eggs’.
