In her play, Les drôlatiques, horrifiques et épouvantables aventures de Panurge, ami de Pantagruel d’après Rabelais, Antonine Maillet recreates beautifully the fantastic and incredible atmosphere present in the original works of Rabelais. She cuts and pastes together the most well known and exceptional selections of Rabelais’ original text and creates a new story, adding along the way some finishing touches which give the play its Acadien content. One of the themes quite prevalent throughout in the original works is that of drinking and the insatiable pantagruelist thirst. Maillet preserves this distinctly rabelaisian caracteristic in her play and also uses the plot of the search for the Dive Bouteille, the Holy Bottle, the suject of Rabelais’ Le Tiers Livre, Le Quart Livre, and especially Le Cinquième Livre.

In Rabelais’ second novel, Gargantua, the author begins the text with a Prologue in which he clearly states that his writing is destined specifically to drinkers and free lovers, " Buveurs très illustres et vous, vérolés très précieux (c’est à vous, à personne d’autre que sont dédiés mes écrits) ". His works are for those who drink freely and greatly, for those who are thirsty. The drink, however, is not limited to the alcohol which is highly praised on the surface, but is also an elixir containing knowledge; for, in the works of Rabelais, nothing is as it seems. Rabelais challenges his readers to " rompre l’os et sucer la substantifique moelle " of his textes. One could thus conclude that his buveurs très illustres are in reality seekers with an insatiable thirst for a profound hidden truth. It is for this reason that his two heros, Gargantua and Panatagruel, are such enthousiastic drinkers/searchers as well as why Gargantua immediately cries " À boire! à boire! à boire! " when he is born.

There is yet another reason why Rabelais’ characters are so fond of drinking. In the search for these hidden truths, wine plays a pivitol role in breaking the bone that obscures them. Wine has the power to loosen tightly closed lips and to take away bothersome inhibitions in order to liberate a person. It can break the hard outer bone and expose the substantific marrow of someone so that all can see the true person. Nature takes control and there is no alternative but to accept the results. One becomes what one really is. The explosion of reality can lead one to break free and to depass one’s limits. Alcohol is therefore an aid in obtaining personnal truth, or, briefly: in vino, veritas.

Lastly, Rabelais praises the benefits of drinking because of its pleasure producing effets. It has the potentiel of giving pleasure and thus forces one accept nature and the corporal nuances of the human body. Being a doctor, Rabelais obviously thought that the exploration and the comprehension of the body were very important in the quest to understanding humanity.

Antonine Maillet conserves the essentiel element of drinking in her recreation of Rabelais’ works. She chooses some of the exact same terms as Rabelais used. The most important passage is this absurd conversation which comes from Chapter Five of Gargantua:

Maillet takes these lines intermittently from parts of a similar conversation among a group of drunkards in Rabelais’ original text. In Maillet’s reconstruction of the scene, there are two lines which summarize Rabelais’ general atitude towards drinking. Panurge says that he drinks for the future so that he will always be prepared in case he becomes thirsty and Pantagruel states that he drinks everything and never wastes one precious drop. Panurge could thus be compared to a sort of wine librarian who stores his wine/knowledge for future reference. Pantagruel treasures his wine/knowledge and is careful to not let escape a single drop/fact. In Rabelais’ original text, however, it is neither Panurge nor Pantagruel who pronounce these words.

It is interesting to note that Maillet attributes the line " I have the word of God in my mouth: I’m thirsty! " to Frère Jean. The fact that he is a brother of a religious order gives an added irony to his words. He also says " Sitio " in latin rather than " J’ai soif " in French to contribute to the religious atmosphere of his declaration. It is also worth noting the fact that when he says he has the words of God in his mouth, there is a certain truth in his joke, for Jesus is supposed to have said " Sitio " among his last dying words on the cross. In the original text, this fact of which many sixteenth century readers would be aware would have given the sentence an additional comic connotation. It is ironic that a brother would take these serious religious words out of context and then apply them to the act of drinking, a practice which would surely be considered as being religiously unpure.

Another detail which Maillet uses to show the extent to which drinking is important in Rabelais’ works is the use of the expression " Par ma soif " in the sense of " Par ma foi " or " By God ". It is again Frère Jean who utters these words and gives them the additional irony that only his position as a brother could contribute. It is as if his religion was not his god, but rather the wine which Rabealis cherishes.

Another important phrase from Rabelais which Maillet reuses is: " à savoir à boire, manger et dormir; à manger, dormir et boire; à dormir, boire et manger ". These words come directly from Chaptre 11 of Gargantua. It was in this way that Gargantua passed his adolescence; however, Maillet applies this lifestyle to Panagruel’s childhood rather than that of Gargantua. In any case, Maillet preserves this trio of themes which show how drinking is one of three essentiel elements in any well balanced lifestyle according to Rabelais.

One nice satiric modernizing touch which Maillet adds to her play is this line: " Qui a bu boira. Épargnez l’eau, buvez du vin. Buvez coca-cola! ". The first two sentences are distinctly rabelaisian in character, but the last sentence is obviously a social critique of today’s modern in your face advertising techniques. The first sentence demonstrates that wine has captivating effect and that once one has tried it, it is impossible to resist the tantalizing hold by which one is seized, or, in other words, once one has known the truth why settle for accepting anything less than that again? The second sentence is much less profound in meaning and is nothing more than comedic excuse for justifying the indulgence in the pleasure of the comsumation of this intoxicating beverge.

The plot of Maillet’s play deals with Panurge’s search for a wife and the subsuquent quest for the Dive Bouteille, the Holy Bottle. In fact, the play’s plot is basically a résumé of Rabelais’ Third, Fourth, and Fifth Books. Maillet, however, fails to include the episode in which Panurge, Pantagruel, and Frère Jean actually find the Dive Bouteille. Nonetheless, she keeps the general spirit of the significance of this sacred object. The Dive Bouteille is promised to be the source of great wisdom and it is even compared to the Holy Grail (Saint-Graal). In Rabelais’ original episode of the Dive Bouteille, the bottle’s wisdom is no less than remarkable and it is worshiped in the following ode like a god:

O Bouteille

Plein toute

De mystères,

D’une oreille

Je t’ écoute:

N e d i f f è r e,

Et le mot profère

Après quoi soupire mon coeur.

Dans la si divine liqueure,

Bacchus qui fut d’Inde vainquer,

À t o u t e v e r i t é r e t e n u e.

Vin si divin, loin de toi sont tenus

Tout mensonge et toute tromperie

Qu’en joie soit l’ère de Noé conclue

Lui qui ta composition nous apprit.

Chante le beau mot, je t’en prie,

Qui me doit sauver de misère

Qu’ainsi ne se perde une goutte

De toi, ou blanche, ou bien vermeille.

O Bouteille

Plein toute

De mystères,

D’une oreille

Je t’ écoute:

N e d i f f è r e

In Rabelais’s texte, the characters pray to the Dive Bouteille as though it were their god. They see it as a source of wisdom which can tell them the solution to their problem. In fact, the bottle does reply to their question with the command " Trinch " meaning " Buvez " or " Drink! ". If Panurge drinks from the Holy Bottle, the truth will come out from inside of it. The truth then tells him to follow his heart and he decides to get married.

In Maillet’s play, Panurge, Pantagruel, and Frère Jean find the Dive Bouteille in Neuve France, meaning Acadie, brought across the Atlantic Ocean from France by the Acadians. In this version, the Dive Bouteille resolves once again Panurge’s problem; however, this time the bottle tells him not necessarily to drink but simply to get married. Maillet adds her own personal touch to the story of the Dive Bouteille by saying that the bottle’s filter is the eternel youth of an antique civilisation. She means that the Acadien people protect the bottles wine with their young and free spirit.

Throughout the rest of Maillet’s play, the characters partake in spontaneous outbursts of drinking and celebration, maintaining thus the tone of cheer and joie de vivre present in all of Rabelais’ original five novels.

According to Rabelais, the way to the truth of the substantive marrow of his works and the marrow of life is by a river of wine. In her play, Panurge, ami de Pantagruel, Antonine Maillet preserves this all important premise that dominates Rabelais’ original works from which she draws her inspiration. This element gives the play its distinctly rabelaisian atmosphere and contributes to the general feeling of lightheartedness that is prevalent throughout the play.

c.1998 pantagruelle.geo@yahoo.com