Gargantua and Pantagruel

by Francois Rabelais

Progress Report Number 4

February 2, 1998

The three things to be regretted most in life:.

1. Telling a woman a secret,
2. Having ever spent a day in idleness, and
3. Going anywhere by sea when you could have gone by land.

This is the saying of Portius Cato repeated by Francois Rabelais (p503 of 712) in Gargantua and Pantagruel, a novel of the sixteenth century. This quotation is one of innumerable references throughout the book to characters in ancient literature and medicine and mythology. I suspect these kind of references, woven into a brilliant work or one of immense feeling, is what measures a work high in its ranking of Great in Western Civilization.

The occasion of this character speaking these wise words was relief at reaching land after a very stormy time at sea while trying to get to the Shrine of Bacbuc, in Northern India, where Panurge can get his answer, once and for all, if he shall be cuckolded if he should marry, and, if so, whether he should not give up his codpiece, and remain unmarried. This book is not very serious. It is funny, and it is ornate and eloquent. To me, it is a treasure to explore something that’s grown so odd in our time yet keeps its beauty and worth.

Copyright 1998, Herman Fontenot

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