# Rabelais

* RABELAIS.
* J'aime Monsieur Francois Rabelais, that
* Rough, shoulder-shrugging, laughing Frenchman,
* Who struts about, broad, red, and fat,
* With humour for his constant henchman;
* Who shoots his wit like arrows out,
* Which goes straight home, like shoulder-smiters,
* Then shrugs himself and wheels about —
* The Falstaff of his country's writers.
* 9Your Fènèlon can smoothly glide,
* Harmoniously in polish'd setting;
* And Racine, who for sorrow died
* Because his monarch took to petting;
* And Molière — witty dog — who caught
* The lighter nature of his brothers,
* And, like Greek Aristophanes, taught
* How much of spleen broad laughter smothers.
* 17Then keen Voltaire, who sniff'd and tried
* All things by the test of suspicion,
* Who, holding a free lance, could ride
* At aught without an intermission;
* And yet for all his witty ways
* Could not by any form of pleading,
* Write a lust-spiel, so Richter says
* In Hesperus, which is toughish reading.
* 25But, corps de Dieu, this Rabelais stands
* With broad and rubicon complexion,
* And tickles you as if with hands,
* Until you catch his own infection.
* He cares not for your priests or kings,
* That strut upon this stage so fickle,
* But holds them both as legal things
* To poke his fingers at and tickle.
* 33Of course, the faults that mark'd his age
* Are found in this bluff, jolly toper,
* Who says things very far from sage,
* Which to translate would be improper.
* Yet innocent enough they lie
* Behind their old French style of cover,
* That costs you many a weary sigh
* Before you can get rightly over.
* 41But still you like him in your mind,
* And hang upon each wordy duel;
* And laugh with him, and slip behind
* Grandgousier and Pantagruel.
* Frère Jean, too, has a spell to cast
* About you, very deep and daring—
* Frère Jean, that rough iconoclast,
* Who fells opponents with his swearing.
* 49Comment, frère Jean, vous jurez? sighs
* A friend, who thought that habit shocking;
* C'est pour orner mon langage, cries
* This testy Jean, so fond of joking.
* Poor Hood, from Deutchland writing back,
* Said Luther's statue, to his liking,
* Was counterpart of Friar Jack —
* A compliment not wise or striking.
* 57A nos moutons it were for me
* A task to ferret out the meaning
* That lies behind la joyeuse vie,
* De Pantagruel and its screening.
* Yet, inter nos, it might be said,
* Apart from all his classic chaffing,
* That Rabelais sometimes shakes his head,
* As if our duty were — not laughing.
* 65But yet, as Pierre Dupont holds,
* The mighty soif with which he rages
* Is but that high thirst which enfolds
* Itself around the lore of sages.
* That all his praise of golden wine,
* And reeling Bacchic invitations,
* But symbolise Minerva's shrine,
* By which we ought to pour libations.
* 73Then setting François in the light
* Of teacher in his way, and putting
* His grand peut-être out of sight,
* As not our present purpose suiting;
* But thinking that his moral's pith
* Is broad, and very far from mystic,
* I laugh myself, and finish with
* A stanza Pantagruelistic.
* 81Come, buveurs, jolly topers, drink
* From golden wisdom's flowing sources,
* Until like her own owl we blink,
* And reel with all her heavenward forces.
* Ha, parlons de boire and sup,
* Le bon Dieu is the boundless giver;
* Ventre de Saint Quenet, drink up,
* And let the world grow wise for ever.

## Notes

* ↑ J'aime — I like (fr).
* ↑ Lustspiel — a comedy (de).
* ↑ Jean Paul or Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.
* ↑ "Hesperus" (1795) — the best-selling books by Jean Paul made him famous.
* ↑ Comment, frère Jean, vous jurez? — How, brother Jean, you swear? (fr).
* ↑ Revenons à nos moutons — let us return to our sheep: let us get back to the subject (fr).
* ↑ Soif — thirst (fr).
* ↑ Buveurs — drunkards (fr).
* ↑ Parlons de boire — let us speak of a drinking (fr).