According to
which
the Thélèmites
Lived
All
their life was regulated not by laws, statutes, or rules, but according to
their free will and pleasure. They rose from bed when they pleased, and drank,
ate, worked, and slept when the fancy seized them. Nobody woke them; nobody
compelled them to either eat or to drink, or to do anything else whatsoever. So
it was that Gargantua had established it. In their rules there was only one
clause:
DO
WHAT YOU WILL!
because
people who are free, well-born, well-bred, and easy in honest company have a
natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them
from vice; and this they called honour. When these same men are depressed and
enslaved by vile constraint and subjection, they use this noble quality which
once impelled them freely towards virtue, to throw off and break this yoke of
slavery. For we always strive after things forbidden and covet what is denied
us.
Making
use of this liberty, they most laudably rivaled one another in all of them
doing what they saw pleased one. If some man or woman said, "Let us
drink," they all drank; if he or she said, "Let us play," they
all played; if it was "Let us go and amuse ourselves in the fields,"
everyone went there. If it were for hawking or hunting, the ladies, mounted on
fine mares, with their grand palfreys following, each carried on their daintily
gloved wrists a sparrow-hawk, a lanneret, or a merlin, the men carrying the
other birds.
So
nobly were they instructed that there was not a man or woman among them who
could not read, write, sing, play musical instruments, speak five or six
languages, and compose in them both verse and prose. Never were seen such
worthy knights, so valiant, so nimble both on foot and horse; knights more
vigorous, more agile, handier with all weapons than they were. Never were seen
ladies so good-looking, so dainty, less tiresome, more skilled with the finger
and the needle, and in every free and honest womanly pursuit than they were . .
. .
Now
every method of teaching has been restored, and the study of languages has been
revived: of Greek, without which it is disgraceful for a man to call himself a
scholar, and of Hebrew, and Latin. The elegant and accurate art of printing,
which is now in use, was invented in my time, by divine inspiration; as, by
contrast, artillery was inspired by diabolical suggestion. The whole world is
full of learned men, of very erudite tutors, and of most extensive libraries,
and it is my opinion that neither in the time of Plato, of Cicero, nor of
Papinian were there such faculties for study as one finds today. No one, in
future, will risk appearing in public or in any company, who is not well
polished in Minerva's workshop. I find robbers, hangmen, freebooters, and
grooms nowadays more learned than the doctors and preachers were in my time.
Why,
the very women and girls aspire to the glory and reach out for the celestial
manna of sound learning. So much so that at my present age I have been
compelled to learn Greek, which I had not despised like Cato, but which I had
not the leisure to learn in my youth. Indeed I find great delight in reading
the Morals of Plutarch, Plato's magnificent Dialogues, the Monuments of
Pausanias , and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, while I wait for the hour when it
will please God, my Creator, to call me and bid me leave this earth.
Therefore,
my son, I beg you to devote your youth to the firm pursuit of your studies and
to the attainment of virtue. You are in Paris. There you will find many
praiseworthy examples to follow. You have Epistemon for your tutor, and he can
give you living instruction by word of mouth. It is my earnest wish that you
shall become a perfect master of languages. First of Greek, as Quintillian
advises; secondly, of Latin; and then of Hebrew, on account of the Holy
Scriptures; also of Chaldean and Arabic, for the same reasons; and I would have
you model your Greek style on Plato's and your Latin on that of Cicero. Keep
your memory well stocked with every tale from history, and here you will find
help in the Cosmographies of the historians. Of the liberal arts, geometry,
arithmetic, and music, I gave you some smattering when you were still small, at
the age of five or six. Go on and learn the rest, also the rules of astronomy.
But leave divinatory astrology and Lully's art alone, I beg of you, for they
are frauds and vanities. Of Civil Law I would have you learn the best texts by
heart, and relate them to the art of philosophy. And as for the knowledge of
Nature's works, I should like you to give careful attention to that too; so
that there may be no sea, river, or spring of which you do not know the fish.
All the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and bushes of the forest, all
the herbs of the field, all the metals deep in the bowels of the earth, the
precious stones of the whole East and the South -- let none of them be unknown
to you.
Then
scrupulously peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin doctors once
more, not omitting the Talmudists and Cabalists, and by frequent dissections
gain a perfect knowledge of that other world which is man. At some hours of the
day also, begin to examine the Holy Scriptures. First the New Testament and the
Epistles of the Apostles in Greek; and
then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In short, let me find you a veritable
abyss of knowledge. For, later, when you have grown into a man, you will have
to leave this quiet and repose of study, to learn chivalry and warfare, to
defend my house, and to help our friends in every emergency against the attacks
of evildoers.
[Source:
François Rabelais,
The
Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955).]
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955).]
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