devil, my dear friend Panurge, seeing it is so decreed
by the gods, wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make them
retrograde? Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame the
intelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the spinning
quills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and finally ravel
and untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of the weird
Sister-Parcae? What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony cod? Thou
wouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of old intended
to have done. Come hither, billicullion. Whether wouldst thou be jealous
without cause, or be a cuckold and know nothing of it? Neither the one nor
the other, quoth Panurge, would I choose to be. But if I get an inkling of
the matter, I will provide well enough, or there shall not be one stick of
wood within five hundred leagues about me whereof to make a cudgel. In
good faith, Friar John, I speak now seriously unto thee, I think it will be
my best not to marry. Hearken to what the bells do tell me, now that we
are nearer to them! Do not marry, marry not, not, not, not, not; marry,
marry not, not, not, not, not. If thou marry, thou wilt miscarry, carry,
carry; thou'lt repent it, resent it, sent it! If thou marry, thou a
cuckold, a cou-cou-cuckoo, cou-cou-cuckold thou shalt be. By the worthy
wrath of God, I begin to be angry. This campanilian oracle fretteth me to
the guts,--a March hare was never in such a chafe as I am. O how I am
vexed! You monks and friars of the cowl-pated and hood-polled fraternity,
have you no remedy nor salve against this malady of graffing horns in
heads? Hath nature so abandoned humankind, and of her help left us so
destitute, that married men cannot know how to sail through the seas of
this mortal life and be safe from the whirlpools, quicksands, rocks, and
banks that lie alongst the coast of Cornwall.

I will, said Friar John, show thee a way and teach thee an expedient by
means whereof thy wife shall never make thee a cuckold without thy
knowledge and thine own consent. Do me the favour, I pray thee, quoth
Panurge, my pretty, soft, downy cod; now tell it, billy, tell it, I beseech
thee. Take, quoth Friar John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who was
the King of Melinda's chief jeweller. Besides that this Hans Carvel had
the reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary's
profession, he was a studious