Rondibilis the physician’s cure of cuckoldry.
At that time, quoth Rondibilis, when Jupiter took a view of the state of his Olympic house and family, and that he had made the calendar of all the gods and goddesses, appointing unto the festival of every one of them its proper day and season, establishing certain fixed1 places and stations for the pronouncing of oracles2 and relief of travelling pilgrims, and ordaining3 victims, immolations, and sacrifices suitable and correspondent to the dignity and nature of the worshipped and adored deity4 — Did not he do, asked Panurge, therein as Tintouille, the Bishop5 of Auxerre, is said once to have done? This noble prelate loved entirely6 the pure liquor of the grape, as every honest and judicious7 man doth; therefore was it that he had an especial care and regard to the bud of the vine-tree as to the great-grandfather of Bacchus. But so it is, that for sundry8 years together he saw a most pitiful havoc9, desolation, and destruction made amongst the sprouts10, shootings, buds, blossoms, and scions11 of the vines by hoary12 frost, dank fogs, hot mists, unseasonable colds, chill blasts, thick hail, and other calamitous13 chances of foul14 weather, happening, as he thought, by the dismal15 inauspiciousness of the holy days of St. George, St. Mary, St. Paul, St. Eutrope, Holy Rood, the Ascension, and other festivals, in that time when the sun passeth under the sign of Taurus; and thereupon harboured in his mind this opinion, that the afore-named saints were Saint Hail-flingers, Saint Frost-senders, Saint Fog-mongers, and Saint Spoilers of the Vine-buds. For which cause he went about to have transmitted their feasts from the spring to the winter, to be celebrated16 between Christmas and Epiphany, so the mother of the three kings called it, allowing them with all honour and reverence17 the liberty then to freeze, hail, and rain as much as they would; for that he knew that at such a time frost was rather profitable than hurtful to the vine-buds, and in their steads to have placed the festivals of St. Christopher, St. John the Baptist, St. Magdalene, St. Anne, St. Domingo, and St. Lawrence; yea, and to have gone so far as to collocate and transpose the middle of August in and to the beginning of May, because during the whole space of their solemnity there was so little danger of hoary frosts and cold mists, that no artificers are then held in greater request than the afforders of refrigerating inventions, makers18 of junkets, fit disposers of cooling shades, composers of green arbours, and refreshers of wine.
Jupiter, said Rondibilis, forgot the poor devil Cuckoldry, who was then in the court at Paris very eagerly soliciting19 a peddling20 suit at law for one of his vassals21 and tenants22. Within some few days thereafter, I have forgot how many, when he got full notice of the trick which in his absence was done unto him, he instantly desisted from prosecuting23 legal processes in the behalf of others, full of solicitude24 to pursue after his own business, lest he should be foreclosed, and thereupon he appeared personally at the tribunal of the great Jupiter, displayed before him the importance of his preceding merits, together with the acceptable services which in obedience25 to his commandments he had formerly26 performed; and therefore in all humility27 begged of him that he would be pleased not to leave him alone amongst all the sacred potentates28, destitute29 and void of honour, reverence, sacrifices, and festival ceremonies. To this petition Jupiter’s answer was excusatory, that all the places and offices of his house were bestowed30. Nevertheless, so importuned31 was he by the continual supplications of Monsieur Cuckoldry, that he, in fine, placed him in the rank, list, roll, rubric, and catalogue, and appointed honours, sacrifices, and festival rites32 to be observed on earth in great devotion, and tendered to him with solemnity. The feast, because there was no void, empty, nor vacant place in all the calendar, was to be celebrated jointly33 with, and on the same day that had been consecrated34 to the goddess Jealousy35. His power and dominion36 should be over married folks, especially such as had handsome wives. His sacrifices were to be suspicion, diffidence, mistrust, a lowering pouting37 sullenness38, watchings, wardings, researchings, plyings, explorations, together with the waylayings, ambushes39, narrow observations, and malicious40 doggings of the husband’s scouts41 and espials of the most privy42 actions of their wives. Herewithal every married man was expressly and rigorously commanded to reverence, honour, and worship him, to celebrate and solemnize his festival with twice more respect than that of any other saint or deity, and to immolate43 unto him with all sincerity44 and alacrity45 of heart the above-mentioned sacrifices and oblations, under pain of severe censures46, threatenings, and comminations of these subsequent fines, mulcts, amerciaments, penalties, and punishments to be inflicted47 on the delinquents48: that Monsieur Cuckoldry should never be favourable49 nor propitious50 to them; that he should never help, aid, supply, succour, nor grant them any subventitious furtherance, auxiliary51 suffrage52, or adminiculary assistance; that he should never hold them in any reckoning, account, or estimation; that he should never deign53 to enter within their houses, neither at the doors, windows, nor any other place thereof; that he should never haunt nor frequent their companies or conversations, how frequently soever they should invocate him and call upon his name; and that not only he should leave and abandon them to rot alone with their wives in a sempiternal solitariness54, without the benefit of the diversion of any copes-mate or corrival at all, but should withal shun55 and eschew56 them, fly from them, and eternally forsake57 and reject them as impious heretics and sacrilegious persons, according to the accustomed manner of other gods towards such as are too slack in offering up the duties and reverences58 which ought to be performed respectively to their divinities — as is evidently apparent in Bacchus towards negligent59 vine-dressers; in Ceres, against idle ploughmen and tillers of the ground; in Pomona, to unworthy fruiterers and costard-mongers; in Neptune60, towards dissolute mariners61 and seafaring men, in Vulcan, towards loitering smiths and forgemen; and so throughout the rest. Now, on the contrary, this infallible promise was added, that unto all those who should make a holy day of the above-recited festival, and cease from all manner of worldly work and negotiation62, lay aside all their own most important occasions, and to be so retchless, heedless, and careless of what might concern the management of their proper affairs as to mind nothing else but a suspicious espying63 and prying64 into the secret deportments of their wives, and how to coop, shut up, hold at under, and deal cruelly and austerely65 with them by all the harshness and hardships that an implacable and every way inexorable jealousy can devise and suggest, conform to the sacred ordinances66 of the afore-mentioned sacrifices and oblations, he should be continually favourable to them, should love them, sociably67 converse68 with them, should be day and night in their houses, and never leave them destitute of his presence. Now I have said, and you have heard my cure.
Ha, ha, ha! quoth Carpalin, laughing; this is a remedy yet more apt and proper than Hans Carvel’s ring. The devil take me if I do not believe it! The humour, inclination69, and nature of women is like the thunder, whose force in its bolt or otherwise burneth, bruiseth, and breaketh only hard, massive, and resisting objects, without staying or stopping at soft, empty, and yielding matters. For it pasheth into pieces the steel sword without doing any hurt to the velvet70 scabbard which ensheatheth it. It chrusheth also and consumeth the bones without wounding or endamaging the flesh wherewith they are veiled and covered. Just so it is that women for the greater part never bend the contention71, subtlety72, and contradictory73 disposition74 of their spirits unless it be to do what is prohibited and forbidden.
Verily, quoth Hippothadee, some of our doctors aver75 for a truth that the first woman of the world, whom the Hebrews call Eve, had hardly been induced or allured76 into the temptation of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life if it had not been forbidden her so to do. And that you may give the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelous and wily tempter did commemorate77 unto her, for an antecedent to his enthymeme, the prohibition78 which was made to taste it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it, else thou canst not be a woman.
1 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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2 oracles | |
神示所( oracle的名词复数 ); 神谕; 圣贤; 哲人 | |
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3 ordaining | |
v.任命(某人)为牧师( ordain的现在分词 );授予(某人)圣职;(上帝、法律等)命令;判定 | |
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4 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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5 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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6 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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7 judicious | |
adj.明智的,明断的,能作出明智决定的 | |
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8 sundry | |
adj.各式各样的,种种的 | |
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9 havoc | |
n.大破坏,浩劫,大混乱,大杂乱 | |
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10 sprouts | |
n.新芽,嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出 | |
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11 scions | |
n.接穗,幼枝( scion的名词复数 );(尤指富家)子孙 | |
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12 hoary | |
adj.古老的;鬓发斑白的 | |
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13 calamitous | |
adj.灾难的,悲惨的;多灾多难;惨重 | |
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14 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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15 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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16 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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17 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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18 makers | |
n.制造者,制造商(maker的复数形式) | |
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19 soliciting | |
v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 );(指娼妇)拉客;索求;征求 | |
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20 peddling | |
忙于琐事的,无关紧要的 | |
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21 vassals | |
n.奴仆( vassal的名词复数 );(封建时代)诸侯;从属者;下属 | |
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22 tenants | |
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者 | |
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23 prosecuting | |
检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 ); 对某人提起公诉; 继续从事(某事物); 担任控方律师 | |
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24 solicitude | |
n.焦虑 | |
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25 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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26 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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27 humility | |
n.谦逊,谦恭 | |
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28 potentates | |
n.君主,统治者( potentate的名词复数 );有权势的人 | |
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29 destitute | |
adj.缺乏的;穷困的 | |
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30 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31 importuned | |
v.纠缠,向(某人)不断要求( importune的过去式和过去分词 );(妓女)拉(客) | |
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32 rites | |
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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33 jointly | |
ad.联合地,共同地 | |
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34 consecrated | |
adj.神圣的,被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣,给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 );奉献 | |
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35 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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36 dominion | |
n.统治,管辖,支配权;领土,版图 | |
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37 pouting | |
v.撅(嘴)( pout的现在分词 ) | |
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38 sullenness | |
n. 愠怒, 沉闷, 情绪消沉 | |
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39 ambushes | |
n.埋伏( ambush的名词复数 );伏击;埋伏着的人;设埋伏点v.埋伏( ambush的第三人称单数 );埋伏着 | |
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40 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
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41 scouts | |
侦察员[机,舰]( scout的名词复数 ); 童子军; 搜索; 童子军成员 | |
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42 privy | |
adj.私用的;隐密的 | |
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43 immolate | |
v.牺牲 | |
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44 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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45 alacrity | |
n.敏捷,轻快,乐意 | |
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46 censures | |
v.指责,非难,谴责( censure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47 inflicted | |
把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 delinquents | |
n.(尤指青少年)有过失的人,违法的人( delinquent的名词复数 ) | |
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49 favourable | |
adj.赞成的,称赞的,有利的,良好的,顺利的 | |
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50 propitious | |
adj.吉利的;顺利的 | |
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51 auxiliary | |
adj.辅助的,备用的 | |
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52 suffrage | |
n.投票,选举权,参政权 | |
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53 deign | |
v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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54 solitariness | |
n.隐居;单独 | |
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55 shun | |
vt.避开,回避,避免 | |
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56 eschew | |
v.避开,戒绝 | |
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57 forsake | |
vt.遗弃,抛弃;舍弃,放弃 | |
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58 reverences | |
n.尊敬,崇敬( reverence的名词复数 );敬礼 | |
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59 negligent | |
adj.疏忽的;玩忽的;粗心大意的 | |
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60 Neptune | |
n.海王星 | |
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61 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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62 negotiation | |
n.谈判,协商 | |
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63 espying | |
v.看到( espy的现在分词 ) | |
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64 prying | |
adj.爱打听的v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的现在分词 );撬开 | |
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65 austerely | |
adv.严格地,朴质地 | |
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66 ordinances | |
n.条例,法令( ordinance的名词复数 ) | |
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67 sociably | |
adv.成群地 | |
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68 converse | |
vi.谈话,谈天,闲聊;adv.相反的,相反 | |
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69 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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70 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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71 contention | |
n.争论,争辩,论战;论点,主张 | |
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72 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
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73 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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74 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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75 aver | |
v.极力声明;断言;确证 | |
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76 allured | |
诱引,吸引( allure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77 commemorate | |
vt.纪念,庆祝 | |
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78 prohibition | |
n.禁止;禁令,禁律 | |
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