d
fellow would have most willingly revealed unto him? Nature, I am
persuaded, did not without a cause frame our ears open, putting thereto no
gate at all, nor shutting them up with any manner of enclosures, as she
hath done unto the tongue, the eyes, and other such out-jetting parts of
the body. The cause, as I imagine, is to the end that every day and every
night, and that continually, we may be ready to hear, and by a perpetual
hearing apt to learn. For, of all the senses, it is the fittest for the
reception of the knowledge of arts, sciences, and disciplines; and it may
be that man was an angel, that is to say, a messenger sent from God, as
Raphael was to Tobit. Too suddenly did he contemn, despise, and misregard
him; but too long thereafter, by an untimely and too late repentance, did
he do penance for it. You say very well, answered Epistemon, yet shall you
never for all that induce me to believe that it can tend any way to the
advantage or commodity of a man to take advice and counsel of a woman,
namely, of such a woman, and the woman of such a country. Truly I have
found, quoth Panurge, a great deal of good in the counsel of women, chiefly
in that of the old wives amongst them; for every time I consult with them I
readily get a stool or two extraordinary, to the great solace of my bumgut
passage. They are as sleuthhounds in the infallibility of their scent, and
in their sayings no less sententious than the rubrics of the law.
Therefore in my conceit it is not an improper kind of speech to call them
sage or wise women. In confirmation of which opinion of mine, the
customary style of my language alloweth them the denomination of presage
women. The epithet of sage is due unto them because they are surpassing
dexterous in the knowledge of most things. And I give them the title of
presage, for that they divinely foresee and certainly foretell future
contingencies and events of things to come. Sometimes I call them not
maunettes, but monettes, from their wholesome monitions. Whether it be so,
ask Pythagoras, Socrates, Empedocles, and our master Ortuinus. I
furthermore praise and commend above the skies the ancient memorable
institution of the pristine Germans, who ordained the responses and
documents of old women to be highly extolled, most cordially reverenced,
and prized at a rate in nothing inferior to the weight, test, and standard
of the sanctuary. And as they were respectfully prudent in receiving of