Gargantua And Pantagruel

The story of Pantagruel and Panurge’s voyage continues, with the group docking at Ringing Island. The hermit Braguibus subjects them to terrible trials by sword, blade, foil, and fire before admitting them on the island.

Braguibus bids Pantagruel to deliver a letter to Albiam Camat, the Master Aedituus of Ringing Island. Aedituus tells them that Ringing Island was once inhabited by the Siticines, who were transfigured into birds.

The groups ask Aedituus why the island has only one Popinjay; he answers that just like there is one king-bee (actually a queen-bee) in a hive and one sun in the world, there can be only one Popinjay in a place.

Pantagruel wants to know how the bird called Clerigoth is born. Aedituus says the Clerigoths are all birds of passage who fly in from the lands of Day-Sans-bread and Too-many-childer.

Aggressive Gourmander-birds rush in; they do not sing, but eat enough for two. Aedituus says that since Pantagruel and his men fasted for four days before the trials of the hermit, they must compensate now by four days of feasting.

Pantagruel is upset at having to wait at the island for four more days, but Aedituus explains an incoming storm will make sailing dangerous. Jean asks Aedituus, that since birds do not work, how does the island have such wealth. Aedituus replies the gold and other tidbits come from “all over that other world” (903).

After the sumptuous feast, Panurge tells Aedituus the fable of the poor donkey whom a war-horse rescued and brought to his stable. The donkey was given a bath, but when he asked the war-horse where he could stallion or rut, the horse understood the donkey would remain lowly and scolds him. The donkey renounces the horse. Aedituus thinks Panurge is asking to rut through this story and denounces him.

On their third day at Singing Island, the group is finally shown a popinjay. As they leave, the Aedituus says, “[I]n this world, there are more bollocks than men” (911).

The men dock briefly at the isle of Ironmongery, where the plants grow swords, blades, and other kinds of weapons instead of fruits and flowers.

The next island they visit is Cheating, where the soil is thin and sterile. Two cube-shaped rocks stand on the island and invite shipwrecks because of their curious shape and size.

Pantagruel does not go ashore the Isle of Wicket-Gate, but the rest of the crew do and are arrested by the furry Scribble-Cats, terrifying animals that eat little children. They are brought to the Archduke Catty-claws, whose hands drip with blood.

Catty-claws poses a riddle to the crew:

A tender maiden, blonde and neat, An Ethiop son, without a man, Did drop: ‘twas painless. Quite a feat: Bit through her flank as vipers can. O’er hill and dale he quickly ran (once pierced impatiently her side.) Then confidently far and wide He clove the air, he walked the earth. A lover of wisdom, terrified, Judged him a human being worth (920).

Panurge gives a garbled answer to the riddle, but also offers Catty-claws a bag full of sun-crowns, for which the men are freed.

As the men prepare to leave the island, Jean notices several galleys laden with meats and fine cloth arrive at the harbor. He learns the Furry-cats earn their wealth by corruption, or bribes, rather than work.

Jean decides to punish the cats for their corruption, but Panurge is reluctant to pick a fight. An old woman accuses Jean’s sailors of not paying up for beds they had rented. Jean pays her and tears up the bedding to teach the Furry-cats a lesson. The group returns to the ship.

Pantagruel and his men sail to the island of Over, where people emit flatulence and slash their skins to make their fat spill out. Panurge is almost blown away by the flatulence of the abbot of the island.

A whirlwind nearly shipwrecks them, till they are helped by a ship of vassals from Quintessence.

Pantagruel and his men reach Quintessence, where the guards nit-pick their pronunciation of Entelechy, the capital of the island. Once the men pronounce the name correctly, the guards escort them to the Queen’s palace.

The men meet Queen Quintessence, young despite being 18 centuries old. She can cure illnesses by singing a song suited to each malady The queen addresses the men with great politeness and bids them goodbye with “To Panacea” (940).

The queen and her ladies literally pass their time by sifting it through a strainer of white and blue silk. Through this action, they revive antiquity.

Pantagruel’s men witness more miracles, such as the Queen’s men extracting water from pumice stone and shearing wool from asses. The queen appoints Pantagruel and his party her abstractors.

At dinner, the narrator is amazed at the Queen’s novel way of eating: chewers masticate her food for her, after which it is poured directly into her stomach through a funnel of pure gold.

A ball is staged in the queen’s honor, with 16 young performers dressed in silver and gold on each of two sides. The performers move like chess pieces.

As the ball approaches its end game, the performers speed up their moves. Three rounds of chess are performed, with the silver warriors winning two. Pantagruel’s party is dazzled by the spectacle.

The crew alights on the Isle of the Roads where roads are animate; thieves and highway robbers range wild here.

At the next island, Clogs, the group is welcomed by King Benius, who shows them the monastery he built for the Demisemiquaver Friars. The inhabitants wear iron shoes with balls on their feet and eat yawns for breakfast.

Panurge asks a monk questions about where the girls in the monastery stay and how they look, and receives maddening, monosyllabic replies in response.

Epistemon notes the monk perversely mentioned debauchery was allowed “only in March,” which is during the Lent fast. Pantagruel says many children are born nine months after Lent, but Epistemon thinks Lent, when one abstains from food and drink, is the cause of all the maladies in the world.

At the Isle of Frieze-cloth, the crew visits the land of Satin, where all creatures are made of fabric, and hence do not sing or eat. The narrator admires a rhino’s horn, and Pantagruel tells him his own horn is unequaled in power and ability.

The crew sees the famous Golden Fleece of Jason, and ancient and present-day philosophers like Aristotle and Peter Gilles. They also see a person with a rounded back called Hear-say, surrounded by countless people eager to listen to him.

After hardly eating or drinking at the Land of Satin, the crew spot the island of Lanternland, all lit-up.

Famous lanterns from history, such as the lantern of the Acropolis from Athens send the crew light. They see the village of the Lychnobians, who live off female Lanterns and are received by the queen, a diamond and ruby encrusted chandelier. At dinner, the Lanterns eat wax, while the queen is served an erect candle.

The queen of Lanternland gives the crew a female Lantern to guide them to the island where the oracle of La Bouteille lives. At an arbor in the island, the Lantern asks them to make and wear ivy hats to cover their heads respectfully in the presence of the Oracle.

After the arbor, steps lead underground to the Dive’s temple. The group is greeted by Phlox, the commissioner of the Oracle.

The steps seem never-ending, especially to Panurge, who cries out to the Lantern to take them back, as this seems to him the Cave of Trophonius, the most dark Oracle. Jean chides Panurge, telling him to have heart.

The steps finally end at a jasper portal followed by brass doors, which open of their own accord. The Lantern must leave them at this point, committing them to the command of Bacbuc, High Priestess of the Oracle.

The floor, walls, and vault of the temple are paved with an intricate mosaic of stones depicting a great story.

The mosaic depicts the battle of the god Bacchus against the Indians, how Bacchus went through India, putting it to fire or sword because the people there held him in contempt.

In Bacchus’s army are satyrs, maenads, the hero Silenus, and the god Pan. At the end of the mosaic is painted the land of Egypt with crocodiles.

In the middle of a temple is an enormous bright lamp mounted on a triangle and beset by rainbows. At the base of the map are carved little naked cherubs merrily fighting.

Bacbuc appears and brings the group to the lamp beneath which the “phantastic” fountain erupts.

Bacbuc offers them chalices and goblets to drink from the fountain, which they see is an architectural marvel beyond compare. Once their palates and tongues are cleansed, the group drinks from the fountain and each person tastes the wine they love.

When Bacbuc learns Panurge is the one who seeks the Oracle’s prophecy, she dresses him in a white smock and other accouterments and takes him into another chamber, where in an alabaster fountain is La Dive Bouteille, half-immersed in water and encased in crystal.

Bacbuc asks Panurge to bow and kiss the rim of the fountain, and sing a particular epilemia, or ode. After Panurge sings, she casts something in the waters, making them seethe. The word “Trinck” is emitted by La Bouteille, and Bacbuc pronounces the prophecy received.

Bacbuc takes Panurge back to the first fountain and makes him swallow a silver book, which is actually a flask full of wine. She explains that “trinck” means to drink; thus, Panurge must do what his heart tells him to do when drunk on wine and merrymaking. Panurge declares he will marry in a rhyme.

The poetic frenzy grips the others too, and Pantagruel and Jean too begin talking to each other in poems.

Bacbuc bids them farewell, asking them to always seek knowledge. People lament that everything has already been discovered, but this is not true, since great wonders lie beneath the earth. Just as Hercules and other heroes were guided by a good lantern in their perilous journeys, so have the group, and emerged real seekers.

Chapter 48 includes an expanded ending, and “bis” or continuations (parts 2) of Chapters 16 and 32.