ow, I warrant thee. I will be? answered Panurge. A plague rot thee,
thou old fool and doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art! When
all cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their
standard-bearer. But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two
fingers? This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left hand
betwixt the fore and mid finger of the right, which he thrust out towards
Herr Trippa, holding them open after the manner of two horns, and shutting
into his fist his thumb with the other fingers. Then, in turning to
Epistemon, he said: Lo here the true Olus of Martial, who addicted and
devoted himself wholly to the observing the miseries, crosses, and
calamities of others, whilst his own wife, in the interim, did keep an open
bawdy-house. This varlet is poorer than ever was Irus, and yet he is
proud, vaunting, arrogant, self-conceited, overweening, and more
insupportable than seventeen devils; in one word, Ptochalazon, which term
of old was applied to the like beggarly strutting coxcombs. Come, let us
leave this madpash bedlam, this hairbrained fop, and give him leave to rave
and dose his bellyful with his private and intimately acquainted devils,
who, if they were not the very worst of all infernal fiends, would never
have deigned to serve such a knavish barking cur as this is. He hath not
learnt the first precept of philosophy, which is, Know thyself; for whilst
he braggeth and boasteth that he can discern the least mote in the eye of
another, he is not able to see the huge block that puts out the sight of
both his eyes. This is such another Polypragmon as is by Plutarch
described. He is of the nature of the Lamian witches, who in foreign
places, in the houses of strangers, in public, and amongst the common
people, had a sharper and more piercing inspection into their affairs than
any lynx, but at home in their own proper dwelling-mansions were blinder
than moldwarps, and saw nothing at all. For their custom was, at their
return from abroad, when they were by themselves in private, to take their
eyes out of their head, from whence they were as easily removable as a pair
of spectacles from their nose, and to lay them up into a wooden slipper
which for that purpose did hang behind the door of their lodging.

Panurge had no sooner done speaking, when Herr Trippa took into his hand a
tamarisk branch. In this, quoth Epistemon, he doth very well, right, and
like an arti