tory of Thyrea, lost the battle which they
hoped should have decided it for their advantage, vowed to carry never any
hair on their heads till preallably they had recovered the loss of both
their honour and lands. As likewise to the memory of the vow of a pleasant
Spaniard called Michael Doris, who vowed to carry in his hat a piece of the
shin of his leg till he should be revenged of him who had struck it off.
Yet do not I know which of these two deserveth most to wear a green and
yellow hood with a hare's ears tied to it, either the aforesaid
vainglorious champion, or that Enguerrant, who having forgot the art and
manner of writing histories set down by the Samosatian philosopher, maketh
a most tediously long narrative and relation thereof. For, at the first
reading of such a profuse discourse, one would think it had been broached
for the introducing of a story of great importance and moment concerning
the waging of some formidable war, or the notable change and mutation of
potent states and kingdoms; but, in conclusion, the world laugheth at the
capricious champion, at the Englishman who had affronted him, as also at
their scribbler Enguerrant, more drivelling at the mouth than a mustard
pot. The jest and scorn thereof is not unlike to that of the mountain of
Horace, which by the poet was made to cry out and lament most enormously as
a woman in the pangs and labour of child-birth, at which deplorable and
exorbitant cries and lamentations the whole neighbourhood being assembled
in expectation to see some marvellous monstrous production, could at last
perceive no other but the paltry, ridiculous mouse.

Your mousing, quoth Panurge, will not make me leave my musing why folks
should be so frumpishly disposed, seeing I am certainly persuaded that some
flout who merit to be flouted at; yet, as my vow imports, so will I do. It
is now a long time since, by Jupiter Philos (A mistake of the
translator's.--M.), we did swear faith and amity to one another. Give me
your advice, billy, and tell me your opinion freely, Should I marry or no?
Truly, quoth Epistemon, the case is hazardous, and the danger so eminently
apparent that I find myself too weak and insufficient to give you a
punctual and peremptory resolution therein; and if ever it was true that
judgment is difficult in matters of the medicinal art, what was said by
Hippocrates of Lango, it is certainly so in this case. True it is that in
my brain there are some rolling f