pter 5.XIII.

How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.

Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed his
discourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say for
yourself, Mr. Rogue-enough, hah? Give, give me out of hand--an answer.
Say? quoth Panurge; why, what would you have me say? I say that we are
damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity of the plea,
and the devil sings among you. Let this answer serve for all, I beseech
you, and let us go out about our business; I am no longer able to hold out,
as gad shall judge me.

Go to, go to, cried Gripe-men-all; when did you ever hear that for these
three hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel without
leaving something of his behind him? No, no, get out of the trap if you
can without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will have
done more than ever was done yet. For why, this would bring the wisdom of
the court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing, and dealt
wrongfully by you. Well, by hook or by crook, we must have something out
of you. Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and ado; one word
is as good as twenty. I have no more to say to thee, but that, as thou
likest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of the next; for it
will go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you give me--a solution
to the riddle I propounded. Give, give--it, without any more ado.

By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a
white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mite
being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies over
hills and dales. Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect, besides
many others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which makes some argue
for equivocal generation), thought that by a metempsychosis the body of
that insect was the lodging of a human soul. Now, were you men here, after
your welcomed death, according to his opinion, your souls would most
certainly enter into the body of mites or weevils; for in your present
state of life you are good for nothing in the world but to gnaw, bite, eat,
and devour all things, so in the next you'll e'en gnaw and devour your
mother's very sides, as the vipers do. Now, by gold, I think I have fairly
solved and resolved your riddle.

May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could n