Project Gutenberg's Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book III., by Francois Rabelais

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Title: Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book III.
Five Books Of The Lives, Heroic Deeds And Sayings Of Gargantua And
His Son Pantagruel

Author: Francois Rabelais

Release Date: August 8, 2004 [EBook #8168]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL, ***

Produced by Sue Asscher and David Widger

MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS

FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES, HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF

GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL

Book III.

Translated into English by

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty

and

Peter Antony Motteux

The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the
first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled 'M.'
are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by the
translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in
1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux's editorship.
Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V. followed in 1708. Occasionally (as
the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from
the 1738 copy edited by Ozell.

THE THIRD BOOK

Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre.

Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies,
Gone back, and now familiar in the skies,
Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite,
Which to obey thee always took delight,--
Obsequious, ready,--now from motion free,
Senseless, and as it were in apathy,
Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short space,
From that divine, eternal, heavenly place,
To see the third part, in this earthy cell,
Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?

The Author's Prologue.

Good people, most illustrious drinkers, and you, thrice precious gouty
gentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher? If you have
seen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much out of my
understanding and logical sense. It is a gallant thing to see the
clearness of (wine, gold,) the sun. I'll be judged by the blind born so