Progress Report Number 3
January, 1998
Book III of Gargantua and Pantagruel is probably the best book of the five; certainly the best of the first three, anyway. Many people wonder and worry about marriage fidelity, and this book is a humorous exploration of the question by Panurge, Pantagruel’s lifelong friend.
If I’ve not introduced Panurge before, it is no doubt in hopes that his character would reveal something more redeeming. But, as there you have it, it is with his usual parade that Panurge poses the question to several people of different castes and imagination of knowing, whether, if Panurge should marry, he would subsequently be cuckolded. He knows several cuckolds of husbands, and he likes them well enough, but he just doesn’t want to be one of them. So he must know, before giving up his codpiece and setting out upon marriage, if he will be cuckolded or not, by Jove.
Having finally given up on trying to decipher the recent advice of a fool, Panurge gets Pantaguel to come with him on a voyage in search of someone else (there’s always someone else) who can answer this question of marriage for him. Pantagruel seeks his father, Gargantua’s permission to go on this voyage, and his father is keen on the idea. He thinks that Pantagruel ought likewise to turn his thoughts to marriage.
In the outfitting of the boats for the voyage, the author notes that a good store of the herb Pantagruelion was being set aboard. This hemp-like plant is being stored in raw and cured conditions. Though I still have a good portion of the treatise concerning this subject left to read, it is enough for me to see it’s contemporary acceptance as marijuana (see world wide web references on page 1), a drug that has intoxicating effects, to see where Rabelais is going with this diversion. It is small wonder that Gargantua or Pantagruel would have any objection to an intoxicating substance—-drinkers from the word GO! Giants at it, that they are. They never tried to appear as anything different. If boozers could or would speak with such eloquence as Rabelais characters, more might find their company less offensive.
This kind of humor is offensive to some. I dare say, to many. Yet, it is a real humor, called parody, that Rabelais does so well here. If only one book in a few hundred years gets saved that treats of life from this angle, this is surely a Giant of one to have survived.
Copyright 1997, Herman Fontenot
My name is Herman, and my e-mail address is: kfonteno@flash.net.
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© 1997 Herman Fontenot
My name is Herman, and my e-mail address is: kfonteno@flash.net.
Back up or go forward to another of the four articles on Don Quixote: 1, 2, 3, 4
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