GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL

MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS

FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES,

HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF

GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL

BOOK I.

Translated into English by
Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty
and
Peter Antony Motteux

The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the first edition (1653) of Urquhart’s translation. Footnotes initialled ‘M.’ are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by the translator. Urquhart’s translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux’s editorship. Motteux’s rendering of Books IV. and V. followed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from the 1738 copy edited by Ozell.

BOOK II.

Chapter 2.I.—Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.

Chapter 2.II.—Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel.

Chapter 2.III.—Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife Badebec.

Chapter 2.IV.—Of the infancy of Pantagruel.

Chapter 2.V.—Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age.

Chapter 2.VI.—How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly did counterfeit the French language.

Chapter 2.VII.—How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St. Victor.

Chapter 2.VIII.—How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua, and the copy of them.

Chapter 2.IX.—How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime.

Chapter 2.X.—How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment.

Chapter 2.XI.—How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel without and attorney.

Chapter 2.XII.—How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel.

Chapter 2.XIII.—How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords.

Chapter 2.XIV.—How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands of the Turks.

Chapter 2.XV.—How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris.

Chapter 2.XVI.—Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge.

Chapter 2.XVII.—How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit in law which he had at Paris.