Produced by Sue Asscher and David WidgerMASTER FRANCIS RABELAISFIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OFGARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUELBook VTranslated into English bySir Thomas Urquhart of CromartyandPeter Antony MotteuxThe text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from thefirst edition 1653 of Urquharts translation  Footnotes initialled Mare drawn from the Maitland Club edition 1838 other footnotes are by thetranslator  Urquharts translation of Book III appeared posthumously in1693 with a new edition of Books I and II under Motteuxs editorshipMotteuxs rendering of Books IV and V followed in 1708  Occasionally asthe footnotes indicate passages omitted by Motteux have been restored fromthe 1738 copy edited by OzellTHE FIFTH BOOKThe Authors PrologueIndefatigable topers and you thrice precious martyrs of the smock giveme leave to put a serious question to your worships while you are idlystriking your codpieces and I myself not much better employed  Pray whyis it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as they were inthe days of yore  Sot is an old word that signifies a dunce dullardjolthead gull wittol or noddy one without guts in his brains whosecockloft is unfurnished and in short a fool  Now would I know whetheryou would have us understand by this same saying as indeed you logicallymay that formerly men were fools and in this generation are grown wiseHow many and what dispositions made them fools  How many and whatdispositions were wanting to make em wise  Why were they fools  Howshould they be wise  Pray how came you to know that men were formerlyfools  How did you find that they are now wise  Who the devil made emfools  Who a Gods name made em wise  Who dye think are most thosethat loved mankind foolish or those that love it wise  How long has itbeen wise  How long otherwise  Whence proceeded the foregoing follyWhence the following wisdom  Why did the old folly end now and no laterWhy did the modern wisdom begin now and no sooner  What were we the worsefor the former folly  What the better for the succeeding wisdom  Howshould the ancient folly be come to nothing  How should this same newwisdom be started up and establishedNow answer me ant please you  I dare not adjure you in stronger termsreverend sirs lest I make your pious fatherly worships in the leastuneasy  Come pluck up a good heart speak the truth and shame the devilBe cheery my lads and if you are for me take me off three or fivebumpers of the best while I make a halt at the first part of the sermonthen answer my question  If you are not for me avaunt avoid Satan  ForI swear by my greatgrandmothers placket and thats a horrid oath thatif you dont help me to solve that puzzling problem I will nay I alreadydo repent having proposed it for still I must remain nettled andgravelled and a devil a bit I know how to get off  Well what say youIfaith I begin to smell you out  You are not yet disposed to give me ananswer nor I neither by these whiskers  Yet to give some light into thebusiness Ill een tell you what had been anciently foretold in the matterby a venerable doctor who being moved by the spirit in a prophetic veinwrote a book ycleped the Prelatical Bagpipe  What dye think the oldfornicator saith  Hearken you old noddies hearken now or never  The jubilees year when all like fools were shorn  Is about thirty supernumerary  O want of veneration fools they seemed  But persevering with long breves at last  No more they shall be gaping greedy fools  For they shall shell the shrubs delicious fruit  Whose flower they in the spring so much had fearedNow you have it what do you make ont  The seer is ancient the stylelaconic the sentences dark like those of Scotus though they treat ofmatters dark enough in themselves  The best commentators on that goodfather take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that areincluded in this present age till 1550 there being but one jubilee everyfifty years  Men shall no longer be thought fools next green peas seasonThe fools whose number as Solomon certifies is infinite shall go to potlike a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are and all manner of folly shallhave an end that being also numberless according to Avicenna maniaeinfinitae sunt species  Having been driven back and hidden towards thecentre during the rigour of the winter tis now to be seen on the surfaceand buds out like the trees  This is as plain as a nose in a mans faceyou know it by experience you see it  And it was formerly found out bythat great good man Hippocrates Aphorism Verae etenim maniae c  Thisworld therefore wisifying itself shall no longer dread the flower andblossoms of every coming spring that is as you may piously believebumper in hand and tears in eyes in the woeful time of Lent which used tokeep them companyWhole cartloads of books that seemed florid flourishing and flowery gayand gaudy as so many butterflies but in the main were tiresome dullsoporiferous irksome mischievous crabbed knotty puzzling and dark asthose of whining Heraclitus as unintelligible as the numbers ofPythagoras that king of the bean according to Horace those books I sayhave seen their best days and shall soon come to nothing being deliveredto the executing worms and merciless petty chandlers such was theirdestiny and to this they were predestinatedIn their stead beans in cod are started up that is these merry andfructifying Pantagruelian books so much sought nowadays in expectation ofthe following jubilees period to the study of which writings all peoplehave given their minds and accordingly have gained the name of wiseNow I think I