uld stay to ask your help or advice in the
matter were I but as strong as he was. Come, he that would be thought a
gentleman, let him storm a town; well, then, shall we go? I dare swear
we'll do their business for them with a wet finger; they'll bear it, never
fear; since they could swallow down more foul language that came from us
than ten sows and their babies could swill hogwash. Damn 'em, they don't
value all the ill words or dishonour in the world at a rush, so they but
get the coin into their purses, though they were to have it in a shitten
clout. Come, we may chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have done
had they lived in his time. We only want to be set to work by another
Eurystheus, and nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartily
wish them, that Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or three
hours long, and walk among their lordships in the same equipage that
attended him when he came last to his Miss Semele, jolly Bacchus's mother.
'Tis a very great mercy, quoth Panurge, that you have got out of their
clutches. For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardly
come to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was. My hair still stands up
an end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there, for three
very weighty reasons. First, because I was troubled. Secondly, because I
was troubled. Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled. Hearken to me a
little on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since thou'lt not hear
at the other. Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a trip down to hell
and visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, (and Dis,) do but
tell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee company, and never leave thee as
long as my name's Panurge, but will wade over Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus,
drink whole bumpers of Lethe's water--though I mortally hate that element
--and even pay thy passage to that bawling, cross-grained ferryman, Charon.
But as for the damned wicket, if thou art so weary of thy life as to go
thither again, thou mayst e'en look for somebody else to bear thee company,
for I'll not move one step that way; e'en rest satisfied with this positive
answer. By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as I
live, any more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds the
following note: 'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, called
Abyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules.
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