zell:
Thy fame will be shell'd
By her, I trow.),
Even so, so:
And she with child
Of thee: No.
Thy good end
Suck she shall,
And flay thee, friend,
But not all.

Chapter 3.XVIII.

How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses of the Sibyl of
Panzoust.

The leaves being thus collected and orderly disposed, Epistemon and Panurge
returned to Pantagruel's court, partly well pleased and other part
discontented; glad for their being come back, and vexed for the trouble
they had sustained by the way, which they found to be craggy, rugged,
stony, rough, and ill-adjusted. They made an ample and full relation of
their voyage unto Pantagruel, as likewise of the estate and condition of
the sibyl. Then, having presented to him the leaves of the sycamore, they
show him the short and twattle verses that were written in them.
Pantagruel, having read and considered the whole sum and substance of the
matter, fetched from his heart a deep and heavy sigh; then said to Panurge,
You are now, forsooth, in a good taking, and have brought your hogs to a
fine market. The prophecy of the sibyl doth explain and lay out before us
the same very predictions which have been denoted, foretold, and presaged
to us by the decree of the Virgilian lots and the verdict of your own
proper dreams, to wit, that you shall be very much disgraced, shamed, and
discredited by your wife; for that she will make you a cuckold in
prostituting herself to others, being big with child by another than you,
--will steal from you a great deal of your goods, and will beat you, scratch
and bruise you, even to plucking the skin in a part from off you,--will
leave the print of her blows in some member of your body. You understand
as much, answered Panurge, in the veritable interpretation and expounding
of recent prophecies as a sow in the matter of spicery. Be not offended,
sir, I beseech you, that I speak thus boldly; for I find myself a little in
choler, and that not without cause, seeing it is the contrary that is true.
Take heed, and give attentive ear unto my words. The old wife said that,
as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or
hull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and
transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad
proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency
thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make t