Gargantua and Pantagruel

Summary

Gargantua and Pantagruel is the collective title of five comic books about a dynasty of giants, written by François Rabelais and published between 1532 and 1564. Pantagruel appeared first, at Lyon in 1532, under the anagram pen-name Alcofribas Nasier; Gargantua, about the father, followed in 1534 or 1535 and is now printed as Book I. The Third Book (1546) and the Fourth Book (complete 1552) bore Rabelais's own name, and a Fifth Book was published in 1564, eleven years after his death; how much of it he wrote is disputed. The library text is the English version begun by Sir Thomas Urquhart (Books I and II, 1653; Book III, 1693) and completed by Peter Antony Motteux. Book I tells of Gargantua's birth from his mother Gargamelle's left ear after a feast of tripe, his enormous appetites, and his schooling. Under the sophisters Tubal Holofernes and Jobelin Bride he learns by rote and grows duller; under the humanist Ponocrates, after a purge of hellebore, he studies the ancients, the sciences, music and exercise from dawn to night. In Paris he steals the bells of Notre-Dame and receives the ridiculous oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo. A quarrel over cakes between the cake-bakers of Lerne and the shepherds of Grangousier, Gargantua's father, swells into an invasion by King Picrochole, who dreams of conquering the world. Grangousier seeks peace, Friar John of the Funnels defends the abbey vineyard with a staff of the cross, and Gargantua wins the war and treats the conquered with clemency. As a reward Friar John receives the Abbey of Theleme, an anti-monastery of well-bred men and women whose single rule is Do What Thou Wilt. Book II follows Pantagruel from his birth, which costs his mother Badebec her life, through his studies at Paris. There he receives his father's famous letter on learning and meets Panurge, a quick-witted rogue who begs in a dozen languages and becomes his companion. Pantagruel settles an absurd lawsuit, Panurge defeats the English scholar Thaumast in a debate by signs, and the giant wars against the Dipsodes and their king Anarchus. Book III turns on one question: should Panurge marry, and will he be made a cuckold? After praising debtors, he consults a sibyl, a dying poet, an astrologer, the theologian Hippothadee, the physician Rondibilis, the sceptic Trouillogan, the judge Bridlegoose, who decides lawsuits by dice, and the fool Triboulet. The company resolves to sail to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle. Book IV narrates the voyage: the drowning of the merchant Dingdong's sheep, a storm that terrifies Panurge, the islands of Shrovetide and the Chitterlings, the Papimanes, the frozen words, and Messer Gaster, the belly, first master of arts. Book V brings the travellers through the Ringing Island and the court of Gripe-men-all to the priestess Bacbuc, whose oracle answers with one word, Trinc.

Top Lessons

• Two schools for one giant

  Book I sets the rote learning of Tubal Holofernes beside the full day Ponocrates plans, in which Gargantua reads Scripture at waking, studies the stars, handles plants, practises arms and talks over his lessons at meals. Rabelais makes education a matter of forming the whole person, body, mind and devotion, rather than piling up glosses.

• A war over cakes

  The Picrocholine war begins with a scuffle about cakes and grows because Picrochole's flatterers sketch a conquest stretching to Mesopotamia. Grangousier offers restitution, argues that conquest is contrary to the gospel, and fights only when he must; Gargantua's speech to the vanquished prefers clemency to revenge.

• Theleme and free will

  The Abbey of Theleme reverses ordinary monastic rule: no walls, no clocks, men and women together, and the single clause Do What Thou Wilt. Rabelais justifies it by a claim that the well-born and well-taught are moved to virtue by an inner spur called honour. Readers have long debated whether Theleme is an ideal, a joke, or both.

• Seeking counsel without hearing it

  In Book III Panurge asks almost every kind of authority whether he should marry, and twists every answer to suit his fears or wishes. Pantagruel reads the same answers plainly. The episode is a long comic study of self-deception and of how hard it is to receive advice.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Rabelais was a practising physician, lecturer on Hippocrates and Galen at Montpellier and editor of the Aphorisms, and his books are full of the medicine of his day: humoral explanations of appetite and temperament, purges, regimen and diet, and anatomical lists. Gargantua's letter urges his son to read the Greek, Arabic and Latin physicians and to gain knowledge of man the microcosm through frequent anatomies, a striking recommendation in the decades before Vesalius. Book III gives a physician, Rondibilis, his own consultation scene, a comic portrait of medical advice on desire, marriage and the fee. The constant drinking is comic and festive rather than clinical, and readers should be cautious about reading it as a picture of alcohol dependence. Rabelais's own claim, in later prologues and dedications, that laughter helps the sick is a period idea worth noting for the history of medicine.

• Book I, Chapters IV-VI

  Gargamelle's feast of tripe, the labour, the attentions of the midwives and Gargantua's comic birth through her left ear.

• Book I, Chapter XXIII

  Ponocrates purges Gargantua with Anticyrian hellebore to make him forget the sophisters' teaching, then sets a regimen of study, meals, exercise and sleep.

• Book II, Chapters II-III

  Badebec dies in giving birth to Pantagruel, and Gargantua is torn between grief for his wife and joy at his son.

• Book II, Chapter VIII

  Gargantua's letter recommends the ancient physicians and frequent anatomies as part of a complete education.

• Book III, Chapters XXXI-XXXIV

  The physician Rondibilis advises Panurge on the cooling of desire, on marriage and on cuckoldry, and accepts his fee with a show of reluctance.

• Book III, Chapters XLIX-LII

  The mock-encyclopedic praise of Pantagruelion (hemp), its preparation and its many uses, parodying the herbals of the period.