Panurge continueth his discourse1 in the praise of borrowers and lenders.
On the contrary, be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world, wherein everyone lendeth and everyone oweth, all are debtors3 and all creditors4. O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby5 result from the regular motions of the heavens! Methinks I hear it every whit6 as well as ever Plato did. What sympathy will there be amongst the elements! O how delectable7 then unto nature will be our own works and productions! Whilst Ceres appeareth laden8 with corn, Bacchus with wines, Flora9 with flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholesome10 and pleasant. I lose myself in this high contemplation.
Then will among the race of mankind peace, love, benevolence11, fidelity12, tranquillity13, rest, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver, single money, chains, rings, with other ware14 and chaffer of that nature be found to trot15 from hand to hand. No suits at law, no wars, no strife16, debate, nor wrangling17; none will be there a usurer, none will be there a pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch18, or churlish hard-hearted refuser. Good God! Will not this be the golden age in the reign19 of Saturn20? the true idea of the Olympic regions, wherein all (other) virtues21 cease, charity alone ruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth? All will be fair and goodly people there, all just and virtuous23.
O happy world! O people of that world most happy! Yea, thrice and four times blessed is that people! I think in very deed that I am amongst them, and swear to you, by my good forsooth, that if this glorious aforesaid world had a pope, abounding24 with cardinals25, that so he might have the association of a sacred college, in the space of very few years you should be sure to see the saints much thicker in the roll, more numerous, wonder-working and mirific, more services, more vows26, more staves and wax-candles than are all those in the nine bishoprics of Britany, St. Yves only excepted. Consider, sir, I pray you, how the noble Patelin, having a mind to deify and extol27 even to the third heavens the father of William Josseaulme, said no more but this, And he did lend his goods to those who were desirous of them.
O the fine saying! Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this model in all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say, according to its own nature. For nature hath not to any other end created man, but to owe, borrow, and lend; no greater is the harmony amongst the heavenly spheres than that which shall be found in its well-ordered policy. The intention of the founder28 of this microcosm is, to have a soul therein to be entertained, which is lodged29 there, as a guest with its host, (that) it may live there for a while. Life consisteth in blood, blood is the seat of the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the microcosm is, to be making blood continually.
At this forge are exercised all the members of the body; none is exempted30 from labour, each operates apart, and doth its proper office. And such is their heirarchy, that perpetually the one borrows from the other, the one lends the other, and the one is the other’s debtor2. The stuff and matter convenient, which nature giveth to be turned into blood, is bread and wine. All kind of nourishing victuals31 is understood to be comprehended in these two, and from hence in the Gothish tongue is called companage. To find out this meat and drink, to prepare and boil it, the hands are put to work, the feet do walk and bear up the whole bulk of the corporal mass; the eyes guide and conduct all; the appetite in the orifice of the stomach, by means of (a) little sourish black humour, called melancholy32, which is transmitted thereto from the milt, giveth warning to shut in the food. The tongue doth make the first essay, and tastes it; the teeth do chew it, and the stomach doth receive, digest, and chylify it. The mesaraic veins33 suck out of it what is good and fit, leaving behind the excrements, which are, through special conduits for that purpose, voided by an expulsive faculty35. Thereafter it is carried to the liver, where it being changed again, it by the virtue22 of that new transmutation becomes blood. What joy, conjecture36 you, will then be found amongst those officers when they see this rivulet37 of gold, which is their sole restorative? No greater is the joy of alchemists, when after long travail38, toil39, and expense they see in their furnaces the transmutation. Then is it that every member doth prepare itself, and strive anew to purify and to refine this treasure. The kidneys through the emulgent veins draw that aquosity from thence which you call urine, and there send it away through the ureters to be slipped downwards40; where, in a lower receptacle, and proper for it, to wit, the bladder, it is kept, and stayeth there until an opportunity to void it out in his due time. The spleen draweth from the blood its terrestrial part, viz., the grounds, lees, or thick substance settled in the bottom thereof, which you term melancholy. The bottle of the gall41 subtracts from thence all the superfluous42 choler; whence it is brought to another shop or work-house to be yet better purified and fined, that is, the heart, which by its agitation43 of diastolic and systolic motions so neatly44 subtilizeth and inflames45 it, that in the right side ventricle it is brought to perfection, and through the veins is sent to all the members. Each parcel of the body draws it then unto itself, and after its own fashion is cherished and alimented by it. Feet, hands, thighs46, arms, eyes, ears, back, breast, yea, all; and then it is, that who before were lenders, now become debtors. The heart doth in its left side ventricle so thinnify the blood, that it thereby obtains the name of spiritual; which being sent through the arteries47 to all the members of the body, serveth to warm and winnow48 the other blood which runneth through the veins. The lights never cease with its lappets and bellows49 to cool and refresh it, in acknowledgment of which good the heart, through the arterial vein34, imparts unto it the choicest of its blood. At last it is made so fine and subtle within the rete mirabile, that thereafter those animal spirits are framed and composed of it, by means whereof the imagination, discourse, judgment50, resolution, deliberation, ratiocination51, and memory have their rise, actings, and operations.
Cops body, I sink, I drown, I perish, I wander astray, and quite fly out of myself when I enter into the consideration of the profound abyss of this world, thus lending, thus owing. Believe me, it is a divine thing to lend,— to owe, an heroic virtue. Yet is not this all. This little world thus lending, owing, and borrowing, is so good and charitable, that no sooner is the above-specified alimentation finished, but that it forthwith projecteth, and hath already forecast, how it shall lend to those who are not as yet born, and by that loan endeavour what it may to eternize itself, and multiply in images like the pattern, that is, children. To this end every member doth of the choicest and most precious of its nourishment52 pare and cut off a portion, then instantly despatcheth it downwards to that place where nature hath prepared for it very fit vessels53 and receptacles, through which descending54 to the genitories by long ambages, circuits, and flexuosities, it receiveth a competent form, and rooms apt enough both in man and woman for the future conservation and perpetuating55 of human kind. All this is done by loans and debts of the one unto the other; and hence have we this word, the debt of marriage. Nature doth reckon pain to the refuser, with a most grievous vexation to his members and an outrageous56 fury amidst his senses. But, on the other part, to the lender a set reward, accompanied with pleasure, joy, solace57, mirth, and merry glee.
1 discourse | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
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2 debtor | |
n.借方,债务人 | |
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3 debtors | |
n.债务人,借方( debtor的名词复数 ) | |
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4 creditors | |
n.债权人,债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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5 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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6 whit | |
n.一点,丝毫 | |
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7 delectable | |
adj.使人愉快的;美味的 | |
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8 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
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9 flora | |
n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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10 wholesome | |
adj.适合;卫生的;有益健康的;显示身心健康的 | |
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11 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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12 fidelity | |
n.忠诚,忠实;精确 | |
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13 tranquillity | |
n. 平静, 安静 | |
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14 ware | |
n.(常用复数)商品,货物 | |
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15 trot | |
n.疾走,慢跑;n.老太婆;现成译本;(复数)trots:腹泻(与the 连用);v.小跑,快步走,赶紧 | |
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16 strife | |
n.争吵,冲突,倾轧,竞争 | |
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17 wrangling | |
v.争吵,争论,口角( wrangle的现在分词 ) | |
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18 wretch | |
n.可怜的人,不幸的人;卑鄙的人 | |
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19 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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20 Saturn | |
n.农神,土星 | |
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21 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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22 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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23 virtuous | |
adj.有品德的,善良的,贞洁的,有效力的 | |
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24 abounding | |
adj.丰富的,大量的v.大量存在,充满,富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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25 cardinals | |
红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 ); 红衣凤头鸟(见于北美,雄鸟为鲜红色); 基数 | |
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26 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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27 extol | |
v.赞美,颂扬 | |
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28 Founder | |
n.创始者,缔造者 | |
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29 lodged | |
v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 );暂住;埋入;(权利、权威等)归属 | |
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30 exempted | |
使免除[豁免]( exempt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31 victuals | |
n.食物;食品 | |
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32 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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33 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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34 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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35 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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36 conjecture | |
n./v.推测,猜测 | |
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37 rivulet | |
n.小溪,小河 | |
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38 travail | |
n.阵痛;努力 | |
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39 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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40 downwards | |
adj./adv.向下的(地),下行的(地) | |
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41 gall | |
v.使烦恼,使焦躁,难堪;n.磨难 | |
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42 superfluous | |
adj.过多的,过剩的,多余的 | |
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43 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
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44 neatly | |
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地 | |
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45 inflames | |
v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46 thighs | |
n.股,大腿( thigh的名词复数 );食用的鸡(等的)腿 | |
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47 arteries | |
n.动脉( artery的名词复数 );干线,要道 | |
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48 winnow | |
v.把(谷物)的杂质吹掉,扬去 | |
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49 bellows | |
n.风箱;发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的名词复数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的第三人称单数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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50 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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51 ratiocination | |
n.推理;推断 | |
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52 nourishment | |
n.食物,营养品;营养情况 | |
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53 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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54 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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55 perpetuating | |
perpetuate的现在进行式 | |
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56 outrageous | |
adj.无理的,令人不能容忍的 | |
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57 solace | |
n.安慰;v.使快乐;vt.安慰(物),缓和 | |
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