688
PARTISAN REVIEW
es Silenes.
...
For the platonizing mystics of the Renaissance, for
the
libertins spirituels
in Italy, Germany, and France, Plato's
Sym–
posium
was almost a sacred scripture; and it is something from the
Symposium
that he has a mind to tell the "illustrious drinkers and
thrice-precious pockified blades," as U rquhart drolly translates it;
with the very first sentence he sets the tone, that of the most prodigious
and unrestrained mixture of genres. There immediately follows an
insolent and grotesque paraphrase of the passage in which Alcibiades
compares Socrates with the figures of Silenus within which there are
little images of the gods: for, like the Sileni, he is outwardly re–
pulsive, ridiculous, boorish, poor, awkward, a grotesque figure and a
mere vulgar buffoon (this part of the comparison, which, in Plato,
Alcibiades only briefly suggests, Rabelais sets forth at length); but
within him there were the most wonderful treasures: superhuman in–
sight, amazing virtue, unconquerable courage, invariable content,
perfect firmness, incredible scorn for all those things for which men
lie awake and run and bestir themselves .and fight and travel. And
what-Rabelais in effect goes on-did I mean to accomplish by this
Prologue? That you, when you read all the pleasant titles of my
writings (there follows a parade of grotesque book titles ) , will not
suppose that there is nothing in them but jests and stuff for laughter
and mockery. You must not so quickly draw conclusions from mere
outward appearances. The habit does not make the monk. You
must open the book and carefully consider what is in it; you will see
that the contents are worth far more than the container promised,
that the subjects are nowhere near so foolish as the title suggests. And
even if, in the literal sense of the contents, you still find enough
stuff for laughter of the sort that the title promises, you must not be
satisfied with only that: you must probe deeper. Have you ever seen
a dog who has found a marrow bone? Then you must have observed
how devoutly he guards it, how fervently he seizes it, how prudently
he approaches it, with what affection he breaks it open, how diligently
he sucks it. Why does he do all this, what does he expect as his reward
for so much trouble? Only a little marrow. But indeed that little is the
most precious and perfect nourishment. Like him, you must have a
keen nose to smell these goodly books
(ces beaulx livres de haulte
gresse)
,
to perceive and value their contents; then, by sedulous reading
and frequent meditation, you must break the bone and suck the mar-
