THE WORLD IN PANTAGRUEL'S MOUTH
689
row, which contains the substance-or the things which I intend by
my Pythagorean symbols-in the sure hope that by so reading you
will gain intelligence and courage; for you will find in it a far finer
taste and a more abstruse teaching, which will reveal deep secrets
and terrible mysteries to you touching both our religion and our
political and economic life.
In the closing sentences of the Prologue, to be sure, he turns all
profound interpretation into comedy again, but there can be no doubt
that, with his example of Socrates, his comparison of the reader to
the dog who breaks open the bone, and his designating his work as
«livres de haulte gresse,"
he meant to indicate a purpose which lay
close to his heart. The comparison of Socrates to the figures of
Silenus (to which Xenophon too refers) appears to have made a great
impression on the Renaissance (Erasmus includes it in his
Adagia,
and this is perhaps Rabelais' direct source); it offers a concept of
Socrates' personality and style which seems to give the authority of
the most impressive figure among the Greek philosophers to the
mixture of genres which was a legacy of the Middle Ages. Montaigne
too produces Socrates as his star witness for the same point at the
beginning of the twelfth Essay of his Third Book; the tone of the
passage is quite different from Rabelais', but the subject under dis–
cussion is the same-the mixture of styles:
«Socrates maketh his soul to move with a natural and common
motion. Thus saith a plain country man, and thus a simple woman.
He
ne~er
hath other people in his mouth than coach-makers, joiners,
cobblers, and masons. They are inductions and similitudes drawn
from the most vulgar and known actions of men: everyone under–
stands him. Under so base a form we should never have chosen the
noble worthiness and brightness of his admirable conceptions.
..."
(Florio's translation)
To what extent Montaigne or even Rabelais are right in calling
Socrates to witness when they declared their liking for a strong and
popular style may here be left out of consideration; it is enough for
us that a "Socratic" style meant to them something free and un–
trammelled, something close to ordinary life, and indeed, for Rabelais,
something close to buffoonery
(ridicule en son maintien, le nez'
pointu, le reguard d'un taureau, le visaige d'un fol
...
Tousjours
