FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   723   724   725   726   727   728   729   730   731   732   733   734   735   736   737   738   739   740   741   742   743   744   745   746   747  
748   749   750   751   752   753   754   >>  
re of garlic, onions, shallots, hams, botargos, caviare, biscuits, neat's tongues, old cheese, and such like comfits, very artificially interwoven, and packed together with vine-stocks. On another were a hundred sorts of drinking glasses, cups, cisterns, ewers, false cups, tumblers, bowls, mazers, mugs, jugs, goblets, talboys, and such other Bacchic artillery. On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zoophore, was the following couplet: You who presume to move this way, Get a good lantern, lest you stray. We took special care of that, cried Pantagruel when he had read them; for there is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in all Lantern-land. This arch ended at a fine large round alley covered over with the interlaid branches of vines, loaded and adorned with clusters of five hundred different colours, and of as many various shapes, not natural, but due to the skill of agriculture; some were golden, others bluish, tawny, azure, white, black, green, purple, streaked with many colours, long, round, triangular, cod-like, hairy, great-headed, and grassy. That pleasant alley ended at three old ivy-trees, verdant, and all loaden with rings. Our enlightened lantern directed us to make ourselves hats with some of their leaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was immediately done. Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us have walked under this arbour. There was a mystical reason, answered our most perspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she gone under it, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same thing, had been over her head, and then she would have seemed overtopped and mastered by wine. Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate and calm, and avoid whatever might disturb and discompose their tranquillity, which nothing is more apt to do than drunkenness. You also, continued our lantern, could not come into the Holy Bottle's presence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that noble priestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action is diametrically opposite to the other, and signifies that you despise wine, and having mastered it, as it were, tread it under foot. I am no scholar, quoth Friar John, for which I'm heartily sorry, yet I find by my breviary that in the Revelation a w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   723   724   725   726   727   728   729   730   731   732   733   734   735   736   737   738   739   740   741   742   743   744   745   746   747  
748   749   750   751   752   753   754   >>  



Top keywords:

lantern

 

mastered

 

colours

 

Pantagruel

 

divine

 

leaves

 
priestess
 
hundred
 

perspicuous

 

hindered


walked

 
priests
 

answered

 

devote

 
arbour
 

reason

 

persons

 
mystical
 

implies

 

grapes


Jupiter

 

overtopped

 

immediately

 
wholly
 

signifies

 
opposite
 

despise

 

diametrically

 

action

 

breviary


Revelation

 

heartily

 

scholar

 

Bacbuc

 

disturb

 

discompose

 

tranquillity

 

things

 

sedate

 

presence


Bottle
 

drunkenness

 

continued

 

contemplation

 

triumphal

 

frontispiece

 

zoophore

 

couplet

 

artillery

 

Bacchic