nd assist me in my extremity and need, but withal flout at and make
sport of that my grievous distress and calamity; or peradventure, which is
worse, embezzle my goods and steal from me, as I have seen it oftentimes
befall unto the lot of many other men, it were enough to undo me utterly,
to fill brimful the cup of my misfortune, and make me play the mad-pate
reeks of Bedlam. Do not marry then, quoth Pantagruel. Yea but, said
Panurge, I shall never by any other means come to have lawful sons and
daughters, in whom I may harbour some hope of perpetuating my name and
arms, and to whom also I may leave and bequeath my inheritances and
purchased goods (of which latter sort you need not doubt but that in some
one or other of these mornings I will make a fair and goodly show), that so
I may cheer up and make merry when otherwise I should be plunged into a
peevish sullen mood of pensive sullenness, as I do perceive daily by the
gentle and loving carriage of your kind and gracious father towards you; as
all honest folks use to do at their own homes and private dwelling-houses.
For being free from debt, and yet not married, if casually I should fret
and be angry, although the cause of my grief and displeasure were never so
just, I am afraid, instead of consolation, that I should meet with nothing
else but scoffs, frumps, gibes, and mocks at my disastrous fortune. Marry
then, in the name of God, quoth Pantagruel.

Chapter 3.X.

How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice in
the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of the
Homeric and Virgilian lotteries.

Your counsel, quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth unto
me not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-nay. It is full of sarcasms,
mockeries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips, biting jerks, and
contradictory iterations, the one part destroying the other. I know not,
quoth Pantagruel, which of all my answers to lay hold on; for your
proposals are so full of ifs and buts, that I can ground nothing on them,
nor pitch upon any solid and positive determination satisfactory to what is
demanded by them. Are not you assured within yourself of what you have a
mind to? The chief and main point of the whole matter lieth there. All
the rest is merely casual, and totally dependeth upon the fatal disposition
of the heavens.

We see some so happy in the fortune of this nuptial encounter, that their
fa