r nativity, and consequently dumb; for
none can be so lively, natural, and kindly dumb as he who never heard.

How is it, quoth Panurge, that you conceive this matter? If you apprehend
it so, that never any spoke who had not before heard the speech of others,
I will from that antecedent bring you to infer very logically a most absurd
and paradoxical conclusion. But let it pass; I will not insist on it. You
do not then believe what Herodotus wrote of two children, who, at the
special command and appointment of Psammeticus, King of Egypt, having been
kept in a petty country cottage, where they were nourished and entertained
in a perpetual silence, did at last, after a certain long space of time,
pronounce this word Bec, which in the Phrygian language signifieth bread.
Nothing less, quoth Pantagruel, do I believe than that it is a mere abusing
of our understandings to give credit to the words of those who say that
there is any such thing as a natural language. All speeches have had their
primary origin from the arbitrary institutions, accords, and agreements of
nations in their respective condescendments to what should be noted and
betokened by them. An articulate voice, according to the dialecticians,
hath naturally no signification at all; for that the sense and meaning
thereof did totally depend upon the good will and pleasure of the first
deviser and imposer of it. I do not tell you this without a cause; for
Bartholus, Lib. 5. de Verb. Oblig., very seriously reporteth that even in
his time there was in Eugubia one named Sir Nello de Gabrielis, who,
although he by a sad mischance became altogether deaf, understood
nevertheless everyone that talked in the Italian dialect howsoever he
expressed himself; and that only by looking on his external gestures, and
casting an attentive eye upon the divers motions of his lips and chaps. I
have read, I remember also, in a very literate and eloquent author, that
Tyridates, King of Armenia, in the days of Nero, made a voyage to Rome,
where he was received with great honour and solemnity, and with all manner
of pomp and magnificence. Yea, to the end there might be a sempiternal
amity and correspondence preserved betwixt him and the Roman senate, there
was no remarkable thing in the whole city which was not shown unto him. At
his departure the emperor bestowed upon him many ample donatives of an
inestimable value; and besides, the more entirely to testify his affection
towards h