,
which makes all beings eternally turn in that fashion; and that to have our
feet uppermost, and the head below them, was to imitate the Creator of the
universe; the hair being like the roots, and the legs like the branches of
man; for trees are better planted by their roots than they could be by their
branches. By this demonstration she implied that her children were much
more to be praised for being like a standing tree, than those of Physis,
that made a figure of a tree upside down. As for the arms and hands, she
pretended to prove that they were more justly turned towards the shoulders,
because that part of the body ought not to be without defence, while the
forepart is duly fenced with teeth, which a man cannot only use to chew, but
also to defend himself against those things that offend him. Thus, by the
testimony and astipulation of the brute beasts, she drew all the witless
herd and mob of fools into her opinion, and was admired by all brainless and
nonsensical people.
Since that, she begot the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping dissemblers,
superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the frantic
Pistolets, (the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva,) the scrapers of
benefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other grinders and
squeezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, gulligutted dunces of the
cowl, church vermin, false zealots, devourers of the substance of men, and
many more other deformed and ill-favoured monsters, made in spite of
nature.
Chapter 4.XXXIII.
How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near the Wild
Island.
About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a huge
monstrous physeter (a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool), that
came right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves higher than
our main-tops, and spouting water all the way into the air before itself,
like a large river falling from a mountain. Pantagruel showed it to the
pilot and to Xenomanes.
By the pilot's advice the trumpets of the Thalamege were sounded to warn
all the fleet to stand close and look to themselves. This alarm being
given, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, according to their
naval discipline, placed themselves in the order and figure of an Y
(upsilon), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight, and like
an acute angle, in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself ready
to fight sma
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