as I see," said Hircan, "you love your husbands only for
yourselves. If they are good after your own heart, you love them well;
if they commit toward you the least fault in the world, they have lost
their week's work by a Saturday. The long and the short is that you
want to be mistresses; for my part I am of your mind, provided all the
husbands also agree to it."--"It is reasonable," said Parlamente,
"that the man rule us as our head, but not that he desert us or
ill-treat us."--"God," said Oisille, "has set in such due order the
man and the woman that if the marriage estate is not abused, I hold it
to be one of the most beautiful and stable conditions in the World;
and I am sure that all those here present, whatever air they assume,
think no less highly of it. And forasmuch as men say they are wiser
than women, they should be more sharply punished when the fault is on
their side. But we have talked enough on this subject."

FRANCOIS RABELAIS

Born in Touraine in 1495, died in Paris in 1553; educated at
an abbey and spent fifteen or more years as a monk; Studied
medicine in 1530 and practised in Lyons; traveled in Italy;
in charge of a parish at Meudon in 1550-52; composed
almanacs and edited old medical books; published
"Pantagruel" in 1533 and "Gargantua" in 1535, the success of
which led to several sequels, the last appearing in the year
of his death.

I

GARGANTUA IN HIS CHILDHOOD[12]

Gargantua, from three years to five, was nourished and instructed in
all proper discipline by the commandment of his father, and spent that
time like the other little children of the country,--that is, in
drinking, eating, and sleeping; in eating, sleeping, and drinking; and
in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed in the mire,
blackened his face, trod down his shoes at heel; at the flies he did
oftentimes yawn, and willingly run after the butterflies, the empire
whereof belonged to his father. He sharpened his teeth with a slipper,
washed his hands with his broth, combed his head with a bowl, sat down
between two stools and came to the ground, covered himself with a wet
sack, drank while eating his soup, ate his cake without bread, would
bite in laughing, laugh in biting, hide himself in the water for fear
of rain, go cross, fall into dumps, look demure, skin the fox, say the
ape's _paternoster_, return to his sheep, turn the sows into the hay,
beat the dog befo