and pioneers; one
hundred and fifty thousand whores, fair like goddesses--(That is for me,
said Panurge)--whereof some are Amazons, some Lionnoises, others
Parisiennes, Taurangelles, Angevines, Poictevines, Normandes, and High
Dutch--there are of them of all countries and all languages.
Yea but, said Pantagruel, is the king there? Yes, sir, said the prisoner;
he is there in person, and we call him Anarchus, king of the Dipsodes,
which is as much to say as thirsty people, for you never saw men more
thirsty, nor more willing to drink, and his tent is guarded by the giants.
It is enough, said Pantagruel. Come, brave boys, are you resolved to go
with me? To which Panurge answered, God confound him that leaves you! I
have already bethought myself how I will kill them all like pigs, and so
the devil one leg of them shall escape. But I am somewhat troubled about
one thing. And what is that? said Pantagruel. It is, said Panurge, how I
shall be able to set forward to the justling and bragmardizing of all the
whores that be there this afternoon, in such sort that there escape not one
unbumped by me, breasted and jummed after the ordinary fashion of man and
women in the Venetian conflict. Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Pantagruel.
And Carpalin said: The devil take these sink-holes, if, by G--, I do not
bumbaste some one of them. Then said Eusthenes: What! shall not I have
any, whose paces, since we came from Rouen, were never so well winded up as
that my needle could mount to ten or eleven o'clock, till now that I have
it hard, stiff, and strong, like a hundred devils? Truly, said Panurge,
thou shalt have of the fattest, and of those that are most plump and in the
best case.
How now! said Epistemon; everyone shall ride, and I must lead the ass? The
devil take him that will do so. We will make use of the right of war, Qui
potest capere, capiat. No, no, said Panurge, but tie thine ass to a crook,
and ride as the world doth. And the good Pantagruel laughed at all this,
and said unto them, You reckon without your host. I am much afraid that,
before it be night, I shall see you in such taking that you will have no
great stomach to ride, but more like to be rode upon with sound blows of
pike and lance. Baste, said Epistemon, enough of that! I will not fail to
bring them to you, either to roast or boil, to fry or put in paste. They
are not so many in number as were in the army of Xerxes, for he had thirty
hundred thousand f
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