第366章

How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses, with long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and monsters there.

As soon as we had cast anchor and had moored the ship, the pinnace was put over the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew. When the good Pantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord that had delivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with his whole company to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do, for, as the sea was calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs. When they were set on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the situation of the place and the strange shape of the rocks, discovered some of the natives. The first he met had on a short purple gown, a doublet cut in panes, like a Spanish leather jerkin, half sleeves of satin, and the upper part of them leather, a coif like a black pot tipped with tin. He was a good likely sort of a body, and his name, as we heard afterwards, was Double-fee. Epistemon asked him how they called those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys. He told them it was a colony brought out of Attorneyland, and called Process, and that if we forded the river somewhat further beyond the rocks we should come into the island of the Apedefers. By the memory of the decretals, said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on?

Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? Do you fleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing else. By the foot of Pharaoh, cried Panurge, the devil a sou will you get of me.

However, sweet sir, be so kind as to show an honest man the way to those Apedefers, or ignorant people, for I come from the land of the learned, where I did not learn over much.

Still talking on, they got to the island of the Apedefers, for they were soon got over the ford. Pantagruel was not a little taken up with admiring the structure and habitation of the people of the place. For they live in a swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it. You must know there are some of all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so forth. You go through a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with pillars, in which you see, in a kind of landscape, the ruins of almost the whole world, besides so many great robbers' gibbets, so many gallows and racks, that 'tis enough to fright you out of your seven senses. Double-fee perceiving that Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating those things, Let us go further, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet. Nothing, quotha, cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated codpiece, friend Panurge and I here shake and quiver for mere hunger. I had rather be drinking than staring at these ruins. Pray come along, sir, said Double-fee. He then led us into a little wine-press that lay backwards in a blind corner, and was called Pithies in the language of the country. You need not ask whether Master John and Panurge made much of their sweet selves there; it is enough that I tell you there was no want of Bolognia sausages, turkey poots, capons, bustards, malmsey, and all other sorts of good belly-timber, very well dressed.

A pimping son of ten fathers, who, for want of a better, did the office of a butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottle that stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of the bottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, Iperceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle. He ogles it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;for it is reserved for their worships. How, cried Panurge, there are some grandees here then, I see. It is vintage time with you, I perceive.

Then Double-fee led us up to a private staircase, and showed us into a room, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see their worships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted without their leave. Their worships, as he called them, were about a score of fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before a bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs. Their paws were as long as a crane's foot, and their claws four-and-twenty inches long at least; for you must know they are enjoined never to pare off the least chip of them, so that they grow as crooked as a Welsh hook or a hedging-bill.

We saw a swingeing bunch of grapes that are gathered and squeezed in that country, brought in by them. As soon as it was laid down, they clapped it into the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each of them did not squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape was tried with a witness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so dry, that there was not the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it; for they had pressed out its very quintessence.