sausage, and that so greedily with desire of more, that, when
they would have taken away the bone from him, he swallowed it down whole,
as a cormorant would do a little fish; and afterwards began fumblingly to
say, Good, good, good--for he could not yet speak plain--giving them to
understand thereby that he had found it very good, and that he did lack but
so much more. Which when they saw that attended him, they bound him with
great cable-ropes, like those that are made at Tain for the carriage of
salt to Lyons, or such as those are whereby the great French ship rides at
anchor in the road of Newhaven in Normandy. But, on a certain time, a
great bear, which his father had bred, got loose, came towards him, began
to lick his face, for his nurses had not thoroughly wiped his chaps, at
which unexpected approach being on a sudden offended, he as lightly rid
himself of those great cables as Samson did of the hawser ropes wherewith
the Philistines had tied him, and, by your leave, takes me up my lord the
bear, and tears him to you in pieces like a pullet, which served him for a
gorgeful or good warm bit for that meal.
Whereupon Gargantua, fearing lest the child should hurt himself, caused
four great chains of iron to be made to bind him, and so many strong wooden
arches unto his cradle, most firmly stocked and morticed in huge frames.
Of those chains you have one at Rochelle, which they draw up at night
betwixt the two great towers of the haven. Another is at Lyons,--a third
at Angiers,--and the fourth was carried away by the devils to bind Lucifer,
who broke his chains in those days by reason of a colic that did
extraordinarily torment him, taken with eating a sergeant's soul fried for
his breakfast. And therefore you may believe that which Nicholas de Lyra
saith upon that place of the Psalter where it is written, Et Og Regem
Basan, that the said Og, being yet little, was so strong and robustious,
that they were fain to bind him with chains of iron in his cradle. Thus
continued Pantagruel for a while very calm and quiet, for he was not able
so easily to break those chains, especially having no room in the cradle to
give a swing with his arms. But see what happened once upon a great
holiday that his father Gargantua made a sumptuous banquet to all the
princes of his court. I am apt to believe that the menial officers of the
house were so embusied in waiting each on his proper service at the feast,
that nobody took care
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