Come on then, cried Panurge, let’s charge through and through all the devils of hell; we can but perish, and that’s soon done. However, I thought to have reserved my life for some mighty battle. Move, move, move forwards; I am as stout as Hercules, my breeches are full of courage; my heart trembles a little, I own, but that’s only an effect of the coldness and dampness of this vault; ’tis neither fear nor ague. Come on, move on, piss, pish, push on. My name’s William Dreadnought.
Chapter 37
How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of themselves.
After we were got down the steps, we came to a portal of fine jasper, of Doric order, on whose front we read this sentence in the finest gold, (Greek)— that is, In wine truth. The gates were of Corinthian-like brass, massy, wrought with little vine-branches, finely embossed and engraven, and were equally joined and closed together in their mortise without padlock, key-chain, or tie whatsoever. Where they joined, there hanged an Indian loadstone as big as an Egyptian bean, set in gold, having two points, hexagonal, in a right line; and on each side, towards the wall, hung a handful of scordium (garlic germander).
There our noble lantern desired us not to take it amiss that she went no farther with us, leaving us wholly to the conduct of the priestess Bacbuc; for she herself was not allowed to go in, for certain causes rather to be concealed than revealed to mortals. However, she advised us to be resolute and secure, and to trust to her for the return. She then pulled the loadstone that hung at the folding of the gates, and threw it into a silver box fixed for that purpose; which done, from the threshold of each gate she drew a twine of crimson silk about nine feet long, by which the scordium hung, and having fastened it to two gold buckles that hung at the sides, she withdrew.
Immediately the gates flew open without being touched; not with a creaking or loud harsh noise like that made by heavy brazen gates, but with a soft pleasing murmur that resounded through the arches of the temple.
Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small cylinder or roller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning like them towards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with rubbing and rolling caused that harmonious murmur.
I wondered how the gates thus opened of themselves to the right and left, and after we were all got in, I cast my eye between the gates and the wall to endeavour to know how this happened; for one would have thought our kind lantern had put between the gates the herb aethiopis, which they say opens some things that are shut. But I perceived that the parts of the gates that joined on the inside were covered with steel, and just where the said gates touched when they were opened I saw two square Indian loadstones of a bluish hue, well polished, and half a span broad, mortised in the temple wall. Now, by the hidden and admirable power of the loadstones, the steel plates were put into motion, and consequently the gates were slowly drawn; however, not always, but when the said loadstone on the outside was removed, after which the steel was freed from its power, the two bunches of scordium being at the same time put at some distance, because it deadens the magnes and robs it of its attractive virtue.
On the loadstone that was placed on the right side the following iambic verse was curiously engraven in ancient Roman characters:
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
Fate leads the willing, and th’ unwilling draws.
The following sentence was neatly cut in the loadstone that was on the left:
ALL THINGS TEND TO THEIR END.
Chapter 38
Of the Temple’s admirable pavement.
When I had read those inscriptions, I admired the beauty of the temple, and particularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work that is now, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be compared; not that of the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla’s time, or the pavement of the Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at Pergamus. For this here was wholly in compartments of precious stones, all in their natural colours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted; another of ophites; a third of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a stone of four different colours, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms; a fifth of agate, streaked here and there with small milk-coloured waves; a sixth of costly chalcedony or onyx-stone; and another of green jasper, with certain red and yellowish veins. And all these were disposed in a diagonal line.
At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on the floor, all in their native colours, to embellish the design of the figures; and they were ordered in such a manner that you would have thought some vine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the pavement; for in some places they were thick, and thin in others. That inlaying was very wonderful everywhere. Here were seen, as it were in the shade, some snails crawling on the grapes; there, little lizards running on the branches. On this side were grapes that seemed yet greenish; on another, some clusters that seemed full ripe, so like the true that they could as easily have deceived starlings and other birds as those which Zeuxis drew.
Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to have strewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with great strides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an unequal stony place.
I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were all pargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at the coming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians; as followeth.
Chapter 39
How we saw Bacchus’s army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.
At the beginning, divers towns, hamlets, castles, fortresses, and forests were seen in flames; and several mad and loose women, who furiously ripped up and tore live calves, sheep, and lambs limb from limb, and devoured their flesh. There we learned how Bacchus, at his coming into India, destroyed all things with fire and sword.
Notwithstanding this, he was so despised by the Indians that they did not think it worth their while to stop his progress, having been certainly informed by their spies that his camp was destitute of warriors, and that he had only with him a crew of drunken females, a low-built, old, effeminate, sottish fellow, continually addled, and as drunk as a wheelbarrow, with a pack of young clownish doddipolls, stark naked, always skipping and frisking up and down, with tails and horns like those of young kids.
For this reason the Indians had resolved to let them go through their country without the least opposition, esteeming a victory over such enemies more dishonourable than glorious.
In the meantime Bacchus marched on, burning everything; for, as you know, fire and thunder are his paternal arms, Jupiter having saluted his mother Semele with his thunder, so that his maternal house was ruined by fire. Bacchus also caused a great deal of blood to be spilt; which, when he is roused and angered, principally in war, is as natural to him as to make some in time of peace.
Thus plains of the island of Samos are called Panema, which signifies bloody, because Bacchus there overtook the Amazons, who fled from the country of Ephesus, and there let ‘em blood, so that they all died of phlebotomy. This may give you a better insight into the meaning of an ancient proverb than Aristotle has done in his problems, viz., Why ’twas formerly said, Neither eat nor sow any mint in time of war. The reason is, that blows are given then without any distinction of parts or persons, and if a man that’s wounded has that day handled or eaten any mint, ’tis impossible, or at least very hard, to stanch his blood.