opped, closed, and bushed. I
humbly beseech you, for the affection which of a long time you have borne
me, to give me your best advice therein. Then, answered Pantagruel, seeing
you have so decreed, taken deliberation thereon, and that the matter is
fully determined, what need is there of any further talk thereof, but
forthwith to put it into execution what you have resolved? Yea but, quoth
Panurge, I would be loth to act anything therein without your counsel had
thereto. It is my judgment also, quoth Pantagruel, and I advise you to it.
Nevertheless, quoth Panurge, if I understood aright that it were much
better for me to remain a bachelor as I am, than to run headlong upon new
hairbrained undertakings of conjugal adventure, I would rather choose not
to marry. Quoth Pantagruel, Then do not marry. Yea but, quoth Panurge,
would you have me so solitarily drive out the whole course of my life,
without the comfort of a matrimonial consort? You know it is written, Vae
soli! and a single person is never seen to reap the joy and solace that is
found with married folks. Then marry, in the name of God, quoth
Pantagruel. But if, quoth Panurge, my wife should make me a cuckold--as it
is not unknown unto you, how this hath been a very plentiful year in the
production of that kind of cattle--I would fly out, and grow impatient
beyond all measure and mean. I love cuckolds with my heart, for they seem
unto me to be of a right honest conversation, and I truly do very willingly
frequent their company; but should I die for it, I would not be one of
their number. That is a point for me of a too sore prickling point. Then
do not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this sentence
of Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have done, others
will do the like to thee. Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that without all
exception? Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all exception. Ho, ho,
says Panurge, by the wrath of a little devil, his meaning is, either in
this world or in the other which is to come. Yet seeing I can no more want
a wife than a blind man his staff--(for) the funnel must be in agitation,
without which manner of occupation I cannot live--were it not a great deal
better for me to apply and associate myself to some one honest, lovely, and
virtuous woman, than as I do, by a new change of females every day, run a
hazard of being bastinadoed, or, which is worse, of the great pox, if not
of both to