of their
leaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was immediately done.
Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us have
walked under this arbour. There was a mystical reason, answered our most
perspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she gone under
it, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same thing, had
been over her head, and then she would have seemed overtopped and mastered
by wine. Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselves
to the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate and
calm, and avoid whatever might disturb and discompose their tranquillity,
which nothing is more apt to do than drunkenness.
You also, continued our lantern, could not come into the Holy Bottle's
presence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that noble
priestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action is
diametrically opposite to the other, and signifies that you despise wine,
and having mastered it, as it were, tread it under foot.
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.
Chapter 5.XXXV.
How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle, and how
Chinon is the oldest city in the world.
We went underground through a plastered vault, on which was coarsely
painted a dance of women and satyrs waiting on old Silenus, who was
grinning o' horseback on his ass. This made me say to Pantagruel, that
this entry put me in mind of the painted cellar in the oldest city in the
world, where such paintings are to be seen, and in as cool a place.
Which is the oldest city in the world? asked Pantagruel. 'Tis Chinon, sir,
or Cainon in Touraine, said I. I know, returned Pantagruel, where Chinon
lies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glass
of cool wine; neither do I doubt but that Chinon is an ancient town
--witness its blazon. I own 'tis said twice or thrice:
Chinon,
Little town,
Great renown,
On old
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