Let her pass then, and the Lord
preserve the survivors; for I must now cast about how to get another wife.
But I will tell you what you shall do, said he to the midwives, in France
called wise women (where be they, good folks? I cannot see them): Go you
to my wife's interment, and I will the while rock my son; for I find myself
somewhat altered and distempered, and should otherwise be in danger of
falling sick; but drink one good draught first, you will be the better for
it. And believe me, upon mine honour, they at his request went to her
burial and funeral obsequies. In the meanwhile, poor Gargantua staying at
home, and willing to have somewhat in remembrance of her to be engraven
upon her tomb, made this epitaph in the manner as followeth.

Dead is the noble Badebec,
Who had a face like a rebeck;
A Spanish body, and a belly
Of Switzerland; she died, I tell ye,
In childbirth. Pray to God, that her
He pardon wherein she did err.
Here lies her body, which did live
Free from all vice, as I believe,
And did decease at my bedside,
The year and day in which she died.

Chapter 2.IV.

Of the infancy of Pantagruel.

I find by the ancient historiographers and poets that divers have been born
in this world after very strange manners, which would be too long to
repeat; read therefore the seventh chapter of Pliny, if you have so much
leisure. Yet have you never heard of any so wonderful as that of
Pantagruel; for it is a very difficult matter to believe, how in the little
time he was in his mother's belly he grew both in body and strength. That
which Hercules did was nothing, when in his cradle he slew two serpents,
for those serpents were but little and weak, but Pantagruel, being yet in
the cradle, did far more admirable things, and more to be amazed at. I
pass by here the relation of how at every one of his meals he supped up the
milk of four thousand and six hundred cows, and how, to make him a skillet
to boil his milk in, there were set a-work all the braziers of Somure in
Anjou, of Villedieu in Normandy, and of Bramont in Lorraine. And they
served in this whitepot-meat to him in a huge great bell, which is yet to
be seen in the city of Bourges in Berry, near the palace, but his teeth
were already so well grown, and so strengthened with vigour, that of the
said bell he bit off a great morsel, as very plainly doth appear till this
hour.

One day in the morning, when they would ha