, free from
the troubles and solicitudes of this tumultuous and tempestuous world; then
is it that they with alacrity hail and salute them, cherish and comfort
them, and, speaking to them lovingly, begin even then to bless them with
illuminations, and to communicate unto them the abstrusest mysteries of
divination. I will not offer here to confound your memory by quoting
antique examples of Isaac, of Jacob, of Patroclus towards Hector, of Hector
towards Achilles, of Polymnestor towards Agamemnon, of Hecuba, of the
Rhodian renowned by Posidonius, of Calanus the Indian towards Alexander the
Great, of Orodes towards Mezentius, and of many others. It shall suffice
for the present that I commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knight
and cavalier William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hill
of Tarara, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and of
our supputation 1543, according to the Roman account. The last three or
four hours of his life he did employ in the serious utterance of a very
pithy discourse, whilst with a clear judgment and spirit void of all
trouble he did foretell several important things, whereof a great deal is
come to pass, and the rest we wait for. Howbeit, his prophecies did at
that time seem unto us somewhat strange, absurd, and unlikely, because
there did not then appear any sign of efficacy enough to engage our faith
to the belief of what he did prognosticate. We have here, near to the town
of Villomere, a man that is both old and a poet, to wit, Raminagrobis, who
to his second wife espoused my Lady Broadsow, on whom he begot the fair
Basoche. It hath been told me he is a-dying, and so near unto his latter
end that he is almost upon the very last moment, point, and article thereof.
Repair thither as fast as you can, and be ready to give an attentive ear to
what he shall chant unto you. It may be that you shall obtain from him what
you desire, and that Apollo will be pleased by his means to clear your
scruples. I am content, quoth Panurge. Let us go thither, Epistemon, and
that both instantly and in all haste, lest otherwise his death prevent our
coming. Wilt thou come along with us, Friar John? Yes, that I will, quoth
Friar John, right heartily to do thee a courtesy, my billy-ballocks; for I
love thee with the best of my milt and liver.

Thereupon, incontinently, without any further lingering, to the way they
all three went, and quickly thereafter--for