ar and swell mountain-high; the rut of the sea was great, the
waves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west wind blustered and
overblowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing, and deadly scuds of wind
whistled through our yards and made our shrouds rattle again. The thunder
grumbled so horridly that you would have thought heaven had been tumbling
about our ears; at the same time it lightened, rained, hailed; the sky lost
its transparent hue, grew dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no other
light than that of the flashes of lightning and rending of the clouds. The
hurricanes, flaws, and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us by
the lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations. Oh, how our
looks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did rudely
lift up above us the mountainous waves of the main! Believe me, it seemed
to us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land, and all the
elements were in a refractory confusion. Poor Panurge having with the full
contents of the inside of his doublet plentifully fed the fish, greedy
enough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a heap, with his nose and
arse together, most sadly cast down, moping and half dead; invoked and
called to his assistance all the blessed he- and she-saints he could muster
up; swore and vowed to confess in time and place convenient, and then bawled
out frightfully, Steward, maitre d'hotel, see ho! my friend, my father, my
uncle, prithee let us have a piece of powdered beef or pork; we shall drink
but too much anon, for aught I see. Eat little and drink the more will
hereafter be my motto, I fear. Would to our dear Lord, and to our blessed,
worthy, and sacred Lady, I were now, I say, this very minute of an hour,
well on shore, on terra firma, hale and easy. O twice and thrice happy
those that plant cabbages! O destinies, why did you not spin me for a
cabbage-planter? O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been so
favourable as to predestinate them to plant cabbages! They have always one
foot on the ground, and the other not far from it. Dispute who will of
felicity and summum bonum, for my part whosoever plants cabbages is now, by
my decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the philosopher
Pyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near the shore eating
some scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects; first, because it
had plenty of oats, and beside