you
forthwith (I mean drinking first, that nothing be done rashly) visit
Lusignan, Parthenay, Vouant, Mervant, and Ponzauges in Poitou. There you
will find a cloud of witnesses, not of your affidavit-men of the right
stamp, but credible time out of mind, that will take their corporal oath,
on Rigome's knuckle-bone, that Melusina their founder or foundress, which
you please, was woman from the head to the prick-purse, and thence
downwards was a serpentine Chitterling, or if you'll have it otherwise, a
Chitterlingdized serpent. She nevertheless had a genteel and noble gait,
imitated to this very day by your hop-merchants of Brittany, in their
paspie and country dances.

What do you think was the cause of Erichthonius's being the first inventor
of coaches, litters, and chariots? Nothing but because Vulcan had begot
him with Chitterlingdized legs, which to hide he chose to ride in a litter,
rather than on horseback; for Chitterlings were not yet in esteem at that
time.

The Scythian nymph, Ora, was likewise half woman and half Chitterling, and
yet seemed so beautiful to Jupiter that nothing could serve him but he must
give her a touch of his godship's kindness; and accordingly he had a brave
boy by her, called Colaxes; and therefore I would have you leave off
shaking your empty noddles at this, as if it were a story, and firmly
believe that nothing is truer than the gospel.

Chapter 4.XXXIX.

How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight the Chitterlings.

Friar John seeing these furious Chitterlings thus boldly march up, said to
Pantagruel, Here will be a rare battle of hobby-horses, a pretty kind of
puppet-show fight, for aught I see. Oh! what mighty honour and wonderful
glory will attend our victory! I would have you only be a bare spectator
of this fight, and for anything else leave me and my men to deal with them.
What men? said Pantagruel. Matter of breviary, replied Friar John. How
came Potiphar, who was head-cook of Pharaoh's kitchens, he that bought
Joseph, and whom the said Joseph might have made a cuckold if he had not
been a Joseph; how came he, I say, to be made general of all the horse in
the kingdom of Egypt? Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar's head-cook,
chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy
Jerusalem? I hear you, replied Pantagruel. By St. Christopher's whiskers,
said Friar John, I dare lay a wager that it was because they had formerly
engaged Chitterl