gative, and continue his sway and dominion over all, both
vegetable and sensitive creatures, and knowing of a truth that he could not
be well accommodated as he ought without the servitude and subjection of
several animals, bethought himself that of necessity he must needs put on
arms, and make provision of harness against wars and violence. By the holy
Saint Babingoose, cried out Pantagruel, you are become, since the last
rain, a great lifrelofre,--philosopher, I should say. Take notice, sir,
quoth Panurge, when Dame Nature had prompted him to his own arming, what
part of the body it was, where, by her inspiration, he clapped on the first
harness. It was forsooth by the double pluck of my little dog the ballock
and good Senor Don Priapos Stabo-stando--which done, he was content, and
sought no more. This is certified by the testimony of the great Hebrew
captain (and) philosopher Moses, who affirmeth that he fenced that member
with a brave and gallant codpiece, most exquisitely framed, and by right
curious devices of a notably pregnant invention made up and composed of
fig-tree leaves, which by reason of their solid stiffness, incisory
notches, curled frizzling, sleeked smoothness, large ampleness, together
with their colour, smell, virtue, and faculty, were exceeding proper and
fit for the covering and arming of the satchels of generation--the
hideously big Lorraine cullions being from thence only excepted, which,
swaggering down to the lowermost bottom of the breeches, cannot abide, for
being quite out of all order and method, the stately fashion of the high
and lofty codpiece; as is manifest by the noble Valentine Viardiere, whom I
found at Nancy, on the first day of May--the more flauntingly to
gallantrize it afterwards--rubbing his ballocks, spread out upon a table
after the manner of a Spanish cloak. Wherefore it is, that none should
henceforth say, who would not speak improperly, when any country bumpkin
hieth to the wars, Have a care, my roister, of the wine-pot, that is, the
skull, but, Have a care, my roister, of the milk-pot, that is, the
testicles. By the whole rabble of the horned fiends of hell, the head
being cut off, that single person only thereby dieth. But, if the ballocks
be marred, the whole race of human kind would forthwith perish, and be lost
for ever.

This was the motive which incited the goodly writer Galen, Lib. 1. De
Spermate, to aver with boldness that it were better, that is to say, a