nably ugly. Go to the bar, go
take the pettifoggers.

Chapter 4.XXXIV.

How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel.

The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water by
whole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile in
Ethiopia. On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears,
harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail. Friar John did not
spare himself in it. Panurge was half dead for fear. The artillery roared
and thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did but
little good; for the great iron and brass cannon-shot entering its skin
seemed to melt like tiles in the sun.

Pantagruel then, considering the weight and exigency of the matter,
stretched out his arms and showed what he could do. You tell us, and it is
recorded, that Commudus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a bow so
dexterously that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow through a
child's fingers and never touch them. You also tell us of an Indian
archer, who lived when Alexander the Great conquered India, and was so
skilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance he would shoot
his arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits long, and their
iron so large and weighty that with them he used to pierce steel cutlasses,
thick shields, steel breastplates, and generally what he did hit, how firm,
resisting, hard, and strong soever it were. You also tell us wonders of
the industry of the ancient Franks, who were preferred to all others in
point of archery; and when they hunted either black or dun beasts, used to
rub the head of their arrows with hellebore, because the flesh of the
venison struck with such an arrow was more tender, dainty, wholesome, and
delicious--paring off, nevertheless, the part that was touched round about.
You also talk of the Parthians, who used to shoot backwards more
dexterously than other nations forwards; and also celebrate the skill of
the Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an
ambassador that made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five
arrows, without speaking one word; and being asked what those presents
meant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not;
which puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of the
seven captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius:
By these gifts and offerings the Scythians s