Gargantua is presented in its Prologue as a book which resembles Socrates. Both are sileni, a term drawn from Silenus, the jester of the gods, the gross, ugly old devotee of Bacchus. Sileni are presented as little graven images with a god to be found hidden inside them when they are opened up, or as pharmacists’ boxes decorated on the outside with grotesques or, say, an ugly old flute-player. But open them up and look within and you find something precious, something divine. So too for Socrates and for Gargantua.
