[Gargantua and Pantagruel Book II. by Francois Rabelais]@TWC D-Link bookGargantua and Pantagruel Book II. CHAPTER 2 5/8
So farewell till to-morrow! Farewell, said Pantagruel. Gentlemen, you that read this present discourse, think not that ever men were more elevated and transported in their thoughts than all this night were both Thaumast and Pantagruel; for the said Thaumast said to the keeper of the house of Cluny, where he was lodged, that in all his life he had never known himself so dry as he was that night.
I think, said he, that Pantagruel held me by the throat.
Give order, I pray you, that we may have some drink, and see that some fresh water be brought to us, to gargle my palate.
On the other side, Pantagruel stretched his wits as high as he could, entering into very deep and serious meditations, and did nothing all that night but dote upon and turn over the book of Beda, De numeris et signis; Plotin's book, De inenarrabilibus; the book of Proclus, De magia; the book of Artemidorus peri Oneirokritikon; of Anaxagoras, peri Zemeion; Dinarius, peri Aphaton; the books of Philiston; Hipponax, peri Anekphoneton, and a rabble of others, so long, that Panurge said unto him: My lord, leave all these thoughts and go to bed; for I perceive your spirits to be so troubled by a too intensive bending of them, that you may easily fall into some quotidian fever with this so excessive thinking and plodding.
But, having first drunk five and twenty or thirty good draughts, retire yourself and sleep your fill, for in the morning I will argue against and answer my master the Englishman, and if I drive him not ad metam non loqui, then call me knave.
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