Where the damned were concerned, he said he bitterly regretted that Panurge had summoned him back to life so soon, ‘For,’ he said, ‘looking at them afforded me a singularly pleasurable pastime.’ ‘How was that?’ asked Pantagruel. ‘They’re not treated as badly as you might expect,’ said Epistemon: it’s their situations which are altered in an outlandish fashion: for I saw: Alexander the Great eking out a wretched living by patching up old breeches. Xerxes was a mustard vendor; [Romulus, a salt-merchant; Numa made nails; Tarquin was a tar quean; Piso, a peasant;
