[In the essay below, Weinberg considers the many levels of meaning in the attack of the Andouilles in the Quartre Livre, concluding that the Andouilles represent Lutherans and the flying hog represents the folly of Martin Luther's teachings.]

The Andouilles of the Quart Livre are emblematic, signifying on at least five levels: (1) Andouilles are literally, tripe sausages; (2) visually, they resemble phalluses, eels, small sinuous animals; (3) politically and historically, they are a metaphor for the Protestant allies during the Schmalkaldic War—the Andouilles specifically are Lutherans; (4) mythically and epically, their behavior is reminiscent of ancient Greek or Roman war councils; the “truye” is a parody of the Trojan Horse; (5) on the religious level, Pantagruel's banquet (= mass) offends the Andouilles, who attack. The flying hog who halts the battle, founder and protector of the Andouillic race, is an avatar of Luther. Analysis of Rabelais' description confirms this; the twenty-seven barrels of mustard dumped on the battlefield are a covert reference to theology (the number 27). Luther's theology, therefore, according to Rabelais, = mustard, which in turn = shit in common parlance.

Rabelais' comic battle of the Andouilles presents a bewildering mass of material, which critics have confronted from widely divergent viewpoints. Michel Jeanneret, for example, believes that Rabelais is at times sleep-writing semi-formed, chaotic, oneiric images, not subject to rational interpretation.¹ Jerome Schwartz believes Rabelais is deliberately subverting, even deconstructing any single message;² Bowen, Duval, Marshall, Paul Smith, for example, attempt to understand him on many levels: stylistic, symbolic, allegorical, anagogical.³

Indeed, Rabelais can be any or all of these things: literal, subversive, and deliberately deconstructive (to throw persecutors off the track), stylistically rich, metaphorical, symbolical, allegorical, anagogical. Although some images may have been suggested by dreams, there is nothing dreamy in his treatment of them, which is purposeful and open to hermeneutical exegesis. It is this approach I intend to take. Rabelais' prose can be called “emblematic” because, like the emblems of Alciatus, Rabelais presents pictures—in words rather than in woodcuts, of course—and like the woodcut emblems, each of Rabelais' word-pictures signifies something and teaches something beyond the obvious and the literal.

Before discussing levels of meaning in particular scenes of the Andouilles episode of Rabelais' Quart Livre, chapters 35-42, I will delimit the scope of my discussion by summarizing the episode:⁴

Pantagruel's ships bypass Tapinois Island, where the monstrous giant Quaresmeprenant dwells, after which they battle another monster, a whale, and then anchor at Farouche Island. While the company is banqueting, they are disturbed by sly little Andouilles who are spying upon them. The Andouilles march on Pantagruel and his men, believing that they are the monster Quaresmeprenant and his allies. Pantagruel wants peace with the island's inhabitants, but Xenomanes, his expert on foreign customs, explains that he has already nearly succeeded in making peace between Quaresmeprenant and the Andouilles, although the former refused to accept the Andouilles' allies, the Savage Blood Sausages and the Mountain Sausages. However, since Chésil (the Council of Trent) has begun, their differences have become irreconcilable. Frère Jan suggests that the best soldiers to fight the Andouilles would be the cooks, so he sets up a great hollow Sow and hides his cooks inside it. The battle is going against Pantagruel's forces, when Jan and the cooks attack from their Sow and decimate the Andouilles. They are in full retreat when a huge flying pig appears, dumping vast quantities of mustard on the battlefield and crying “Mardigras, Mardigras!” Both armies cease fighting; Pantagruel then confers with the queen of the Andouilles, Niphleseth, who formally surrenders, and, as part of the peace treaty, provides 78,000 Andouilles to serve the royal table as hors d’oeuvres (or to serve hors d’oeuvres at the royal table—the text is ambiguous) for the next six months.

I will be looking at this episode as if it were written in layers, like a geological formation. I will begin at the surface, then dig further. My strata will be: (1) the literal level, (2) visual analogies—phallic and otherwise, (3) the politico-historical significance, (4) the mythic and epic dimension, (5) the religious significance and Mardi gras.

As for the first (literal) level, the word andouilles means sausages made with chopped tripe and other bits of pork, herbs, and spices, stuffed into lengths of intestine. Pondering just why Rabelais chose andouilles to people this island rather than plum puddings or carrots, one moves to consideration of level two (visual analogies). Andouilles are phallic in appearance, although the noun is feminine. Buckets of scholarly ink have been spilled on why the warlike Andouilles are females.⁵ It would seem that Rabelais was following the grammatical gender in assigning sex. Though similarly absurd, it seems to puzzle no one when the penis is designated as “la bitte.” Andouilles have always been phallic symbols, as exemplified by a text from 1178: “Lasse, fait elle, ou est m’andouille/Qui ci iluec vos souloit pandre.” (“Alas, said she, where is your darling sausage / that used to hang there?”).⁶ Rabelais demonstrates his awareness of this symbolism in his name for the queen Andouille, “Niphleseth,” which is Hebrew for “membre viril.”⁷ One of the Latin words for penis, mentula (also feminine) was also used in antiquity to abuse fools, something Rabelais seems to know about, since Jupiter compliments Priapus with a touch of irony in the prologue to Quart Livre, “Et habet tua mentula mentem” (“your member has mind”; 573). Andouille, meaning penis, is still used to abuse fools; for example, in Trésor we find: “Votre train est passé, andouilles. Vous êtes tous des cons” (“your train has passed, sausages. You are all idiots”). Farouche Island is inhabited by oversized, edible, irascible, phallic, female fools.

Still on the second level (visual analogies), Rabelais, by association with phalluses, connects his Andouilles with slippery eels, anguilles. The two words resemble one another, and anguille has traditionally been used metaphorically for penis. Anguille leads Rabelais to associate eel-like phalluses with Eve's serpent in Eden, then with Priapus in the garden. His associations lead to obscurity, however, for if we were to consider Quaresmeprenant to be Lent and Andouilles to be Mardi gras, we would find the sausages confused with delicacies traditionally eaten during Lent, as Barbara Bowen has shown convincingly.⁸

One last visual analogy before moving on to politico-historical aspects: Pantagruel mistakes the small Andouilles, who are spying on him and his retinue at their banquet, for squirrels, martens, weasels, or ermines. Why, readers ask, compare sausages to furry creatures? Because, I think, one notices the undulating motion of squirrels, weasels, and so forth, rather than their fur that cannot be distinguished at a distance. These long, sinuous mammals move in flowing, serpentine bounds, thus linking this comparison to the eels and snakes. Their mode of locomotion, not their outer covering, brings eels together with weasels, giving us an insight into Rabelais' visual imagination.

At our third stratum, Xenomanes is the bearer of politico-historical information to Pantagruel. As he relates his previous attempt to reconcile the difference between Quaresmeprenant and the sausages, he reveals that Quaresmeprenant refused to include the “Boudins saulvaiges” and the “Saulcissons montigènes” (the savage blood sausages and the mountain sausages) in the peace treaty. Rabelais himself reveals that he means the Swiss when he speaks of the Mountain Sausages; Alban Krailsheimer shows that the “Boudins saulvaiges,” or “selvaticques” as Rabelais later calls them, are inhabitants of the Black Forest, and thus adherents of Zwingli and Bucer. He demonstrates that Rabelais' entire carnal horde is a metaphor for the Protestant allies during the Schmalkaldic War that took place while Rabelais was in Metz in 1546. In that war, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, soundly defeated all the Protestant allies: Zwinglians and Bucerites from Switzerland and the Black Forest city-states, and the Lutherans from farther north. Krailsheimer links the Schmalkaldic Lutherans to the Andouilles, furnishing another reason why Rabelais chose them rather than plum puddings: German schmal means narrow; Kaldaunen means tripe. Thus Schmalkaldaunen becomes Schmalkalden becomes Andouilles.⁹ Although the radical reformers might have presented a united front to Charles V, Bucer's and Zwingli's followers did not consider themselves close kin to the Lutherans in their interpretation of the meaning of faith, and least of all, in their view of the Eucharist, as we shall see.

Quaresmeprenant, then, would represent Charles V, Xenomanes a French negotiator. The emperor—menaced by the Turks and the French—tried to make peace with his German Protestant subjects before he was forced to fight them, and was commended for his efforts by Luther and Calvin, condemned for them by the pope. Xenomanes might even represent Rabelais himself, who, if Robert Marichal is correct, might have been used by Cardinal Jean du Bellay as a peace negotiator in Metz before irreconcilable differences caused hostilities to break out.¹⁰ The Andouilles had refused the peace treaty, insisting on controlling both Cacques Fortress and Sallouoir Castle. Caques are casks of salted herring, and the saloir is where salted meat is kept. In wishing to rule both herring barrel and meat safe, the Andouilles wish to arbitrate how feasting and fasting should be observed, i.e., they wish to dictate these phases of time-honored Christian practice and ritual according to their own biases. Since Chésil, the two sides have become “horrificquement aigriz, envenimez, indignez, et obstinez en leurs couraiges, est n’est possible y remédier” (“horribly embittered, envenomed, angered and hardened in their hearts, and it is not possible to remedy it,” 35, 680). Chésil probably derives from Hebrew Kessil, a fool or “nitwit.”¹¹ It is clear that Rabelais would have preferred peace, as Pantagruel constantly demonstrates. The Andouilles, the intransigent Lutherans like the uncompromising counselors at Chésil/Kessil/Trent, are for Rabelais, all fools.

Since the differences are irreconcilable, hostilities must break out. The battle reveals a number of comically mythic and epic dimensions (and we have now arrived at stratum 4). Pantagruel's recitation of classical examples before battle is, Kinser believes, a parody of both the heroes of antiquity who take counsel and omens before fighting, and of contemporary humanist displays of erudition.¹² Bowen notes that Rabelais pastiches a number of epic styles: “Greek and Latin—the great Sow where Frier Jean hides his 157 cooks recalls the Trojan Horse, and Dido and Aeneas are evoked in passing; Carolingian—Gymnaste's sword is called ‘Kissmyarse’; Arthurian—mustard is the ‘Holy Grail’ of the Andouilles.”¹³ Pantagruel could be seen as any great epic hero, of course, and the list of cooks corresponds to the “catalogue of ships” in the Iliad, or the roster of heroes in the Aeneid. The etymology of truye reveals an actual identity with Troye. The vulgar latin ancestor of truye was troia, as in porcus troianus, a “stuffed pig.”¹⁴ A roast pig stuffed with delicacies, or maybe a pregnant sow, was thus playfully named for the Trojan horse.

Although Guy Demerson notes that Rabelais models Frère Jan's Truye upon a similar machine described by Froissart, he misses Rabelais' close fidelity to his source. Rabelais describes the war-machine in these words:

C’estoit un engin mirificque, faict de telle ordonnance que, des gros couillarts qui par rancs estoient autour, il jectoit bedaines et quarreux empenez d’assier et dedans la quadrature duquel pouvoient aisément combattre et à couvert demourer deux cens hommes et plus.¹⁵

Here is Froissart:

[C’estoit] un grant engin que on appelle truie, lequel engin estoit de telle ordonnance que il jetoit pierres de faix, et se pouvoient bien cent hommes d’armes ordonner dedans.¹⁶

As is his wont, Rabelais inflates his model both stylistically and in the variety of weapons thrown and number of men sheltered, but the vocabulary used and the order of the description indicate a direct intertextual reference.

There is a final satirical allusion to classical epic: the battle between Pantagruel and the Andouilles is ended by the advent of a flying creature. The same is true in the Aeneid, where Turnus, on whom the enemy force depends, is halted by a flying creature, a “little bird” rather than a gigantic hog. The little bird is actually one of the Dirae who resemble the Furies, and this creature, on orders from Jupiter, takes the form of a graveyard bird in order to frighten Turnus and stop the fighting.¹⁷

The fifth stratum, the religious significance of the episode, will prove to be the richest vein of all. Bowen and Kinser have shown that although the battle between Quaresmeprenant and the Andouilles recalls the traditional battle between Carnival and Lent, a literary trope since the thirteenth century at least, neither side in Rabelais' conflict unequivocally represents Lent or Carnival.¹⁸ Quaresmeprenant has aspects of Carnival, the Andouilles are anguilles (eels), and both are associated with mustard. The Andouilles' deity seems to be Mardi gras, but Pantagruel's army's password is also Mardi gras—neither party actually represents that time of feasting, although both have much in common. Why, then, do they fight?

Pantagruel and his shipmates are viewed with suspicion and hostility from the moment they set foot upon Farouche Island. Having just narrowly escaped serving as a meal for the Physetère, the Prince and his court sit down to a thanksgiving banquet. It is Frère Jan, symbol of the earthly (and earthy) Church, the ecclesia militans, who rings the bell to begin the mass/feast. Rabelaisian feasting has elsewhere been shown to be a symbol for the mass,¹⁹ but as an informal service similar to the parting feast celebrated on board the Thalamège just before embarkation. “It is less a question … of a specifically Reformed Eucharist than of one of those agapés, or lay and non-sacramental Suppers so often practiced by the ‘holy Christians’ of the ‘early Church.’”²⁰ This sort of practice would be (as Lucien Febvre confirms) more Evangelical than Reformed.²¹ As always ambiguous or multivalent in his meanings, Rabelais often portrays communion as a meeting of minds. Communing with one's fellows—an exchange of ideas, friendly discussion about essential matters—is equivalent to drinking the wine, absorbing the sustenance, and hence imbibing or assimilating the Body and the Blood. One communes with the divine spark in one's fellows, and thus with the Divine Spirit as well. The informality of Rabelais' “masses” shows his agreement with Erasmus, who denounced the formalized ritual of the Roman Church as “Judaic.” Most Humanists and reformers decried the fixed and convention-bound celebration of the Last Supper, calling it idolatry. Rabelais' masses therefore show the Pantagrueline companions communing with each other, partaking of the “bread” and the “wine.” Panurge, in the Tiers Livre, had remarked, “pain et vin. En ces deux sont comprinses toutes especes des aliments” (“bread and wine. These two encompass every type of aliment”).²²

During the second course, Pantagruel observes a number of nimble little Andouilles climbing on a high tree, near “le retraict du guobelet.”²³ The Andouilles spy on Pantagruel's service near the storage area for the wine, at the spot (a spring, perhaps?) where the wine is being cooled.²⁴ Wine is the most important element of the Communion; furthermore, Rabelais does not write “le retraict du vin,” but “du guobelet,” thus focusing on the wine-glass, and therefore on the chalice used in the mass. The reader is alerted from the first contact with the Andouilles that they are somehow concerned with the Eucharist, which had caused and would cause enormous friction among the various factions of Christian belief.

The Andouilles spying on Pantagruel as he “celebrates mass” do not assume that he is Quaresmeprenant merely because of his size, as Bowen assumes,²⁵ but also because they are so alienated from orthodox Christianity that even moderates, like Pantagruel and his company, are still viewed as hateful representatives of Rome, or at best as heretics committing sacrilege. The Andouillic forces, including the most radical Protestants, therefore attack, until it is made clear that they have assailed the wrong party.

Rabelais' account of the battle is brief. The engagement is going in favor of the Andouilles until Frère Jan and his cooks burst out of the Truye and decimate the enemy. They are in danger of extermination to the last sausage, when Mardi gras appears in the form of a giant flying pig. The Andouilles make spontaneous obeisance, kneeling and raising their joined hands in most idolatrous worship.

If Krailsheimer is correct in considering the Andouilles to be Lutherans, their founder would of necessity be a caricature of Martin Luther. There is historical evidence for identifying Martin Luther as a hog; in particular, the papal bull condemning Luther's doctrines. Widely known by its opening words, “Exsurge Domine,” the bull's first two sentences read: “Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar has invaded thy vineyard.”²⁶ This wild boar has now taken flight to save his troops from destruction by more moderate reformers. The description of the flying hog is lengthy and, in part, susceptible to interpretation:

From a northerly direction (or from across the mountains) there flew towards us a great, huge, gross, grey swine, with wings as long and broad as the sails of a windmill, and plumage as crimson red as the feathers of a phoenicopter, which in Languedoc is called a flamingo. It had flashing red eyes like carbuncles, and green ears the colour of chrysolite (a “prassine” emerald). Its teeth were as yellow as a topaz. Its tail was long and as black as Lucullian marble. Its feet were white, diaphanous, and transparent as a diamond, and broadly webbed like those of a goose, or as Queen Pedauque's were of old at Toulouse. It had a gold collar round its neck, inscribed with some Ionic lettering of which I could only make out two words: HYS ATHENAN—the hog (instructs) Minerva.²⁷

The apparition flies “Du cousté de la Transmontane,” meaning either across the mountains, or more commonly, from the polar north. The mountains logically would be the Alps; Germany lies northeast of France, so the direction of flight would appear to strengthen the hypothesis that Rabelais has Luther in mind. The pig is “grand, gras, gros, gris,” a combination of alliterative adjectives used before by Rabelais in describing the book of Gargantua.

Although described as grey, the hog appears arrayed in a prism of colors: “les aesles … rouge cramoisy. … Les oeilz rouges … comme un pyrope” (crimson red wings; eyes as red as a ruby). Red and shades of red are traditionally used in the Church as a symbol of Charity. The ruby, because of its color a symbol of divine love, also denotes the Passion.²⁸ The “rouge cramoisy” wings of this gigantic “dove” cover his flock with lovingkindness while he charitably regards his world. Other allusions are:

“Les aureilles verdes comme une esmeraulde prassine” (ears as green as a “prassine” emerald [chrysolite]). The emerald—and other translucent green stones confused with it—signify Hope in ecclesiastical symbolism and the emerald is a stone that actually suppresses lust as it represents the celestial Venus (i.e., divine love);²⁹ it dispels diabolical illusions, strengthens memory, and inspires rhetoricians.³⁰ The relevant attributes seem to be Hope and (once again) divine love.

“Les dens jaulnes comme un topaze” (teeth yellow as a topaz). The topaz, representing the Sun and intellect also,³¹ when dipped into liquid, dispels any poison present therein.³² By implication, then, the words that pass this mouthful of topazes must be wise and enlightening, and will never be venomous. The rancor and downright abuse that pours from Luther's (mouth and) pen—against Rabelais' beloved Erasmus, for example—would force the conclusion that this attribute of Mardi gras is highly ironic!

“La queue longue, noire comme marbre Lucullian” (a long tail, black as Lucullian marble). Black, in religious terms, symbolizes penitence and humility.³³ In this case, these virtues appear to be attached to the Luther-hog almost as an afterthought, once again indicating Rabelais' opinion of the real Luther.

“Les pieds blancs … comme un diamant” (feet as white as a diamond). The diamond signifies religious Faith,³⁴ illumination, ascension, revelation.³⁵ The flying pig stands upon Faith; Faith is his foundation (“Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders!”).

All the religious symbolism in the description is coherent, in particular the cardinal virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Redeeming details indeed, but the whole that unites the particulars is still a hog. Swine have few if any positive connotations in the symbolic universe. They are figures for impurity, uncleanness, unbelief, gluttony, lasciviousness, sloth, grossness, lack of sensitivity, sensuality, ignorance—and above all, swine incarnate matter as opposed to spirit.

Some of these attributes are appropriate for the celebrations at Mardi gras (gluttony, lasciviousness, sensuality, and material rather than spiritual concerns). This particular hog is airborne, signifying his elevation above the common herd—he is less impure and slothful than most. Other attributes indicate that he is not unclean—his glowing colors, and above all, his transparent and sparkling feet. Are they “largement pattez comme sont des oyes” (broadly webbed like those of a goose) because he tries to walk on water? Is there a covert reference here to Rom. 10:15, “How beautiful are the feet of them that speak the gospel of Peace”?

Queen Niphleseth explains that the hog is the (Platonic) Idea of Mardi gras, the founder of the Andouillic race. Her Andouilles are made of pork, and therefore, logically, their deity is a pig. Rabelais appears to suggest that Luther, though arrayed in spiritual colors, is essentially material and sorely lacking in spiritual understanding, as are his followers. Rabelais could be satirizing Luther's interpretation of the Eucharist, a highly controversial and widely known position, according to which it is Christ's natural body that is served to the communicant, who consumes it. The doctrine was also satirized by the Zwinglians, who called Lutherans “Fleischfresser,” with the implication that they were cannibals as well as mere meateaters.³⁶ Luther defends himself against Swiss attackers, who like Zwingli, interpret the Supper as a spiritual, not a literal partaking of Christ's body. God is indeed everywhere, Luther asserts, although the “fanatics” sneer at this idea, attributing words such as these to the Lutherans: “If Christ's body is everywhere, ah, then I shall eat and drink him in the taverns. … Oh, how we will chew him up! Such shameful pigs are we dreadful Germans … that we have neither restraint nor reason.”³⁷ Luther turns the tables on his opponents, deeming them to be pigs and dogs for attributing such nonsense to him and his followers. After all, we humans can only touch God where he bids us seek him, namely at the sacramental table. Zwingli and Oecolampadius also rely on John 6:63, “Flesh is of no avail,” in arguing that the body of Christ is present only spiritually at the Supper. Luther points out that John does not necessarily speak of Christ's body in this passage. “Indeed, it might also mean a pork roast. …”³⁸ Given the Lutherans' fleshly reputation—already well established—such porcine imagery probably added fuel to the fire, instead of making converts to Luther's side. Luther seems to have recognized this, since he later disparaged the book.³⁹ Rabelais, at least, makes outrageous fun of the whole Lutheran complex, envisioning his followers as tripe sausages, only one step removed from the basest matter, “matière fécale.”

The most telling detail, and one that sums up the meaning of the flying swine, is the golden collar bearing the inscription “hus Athenan,” “the hog (teaches) Minerva,” an Erasmian adage.⁴⁰ Erasmus explains: “This was usually said when some ignorant and silly person attempts to teach the one by whom he ought rather to be taught.” Thus “Luther” is attempting, in his materialistic and uncouth way, to teach truths of faith to his spiritual betters in the Church (Minerva), and his doctrines fall to earth in the form of twenty-seven barrelsful of mustard. This condiment is compared by Queen Niphleseth to the “Sangréal et Bausme céleste” (holy grail and celestial balm) which cure the wounded and resurrect the dead Andouilles. Duval demonstrates that “Sangréal” is a Rabelaisian coinage, never before written in this form, designating both sanguis regalis (Christ's royal blood) and sanguis realis (his real blood). This “Sangréal” is the sacramental wine in which the blood is truly present during the communion service. This meaning is confirmed by the further comparison “Bausme céleste,” falling like the manna which, in the Old Testament, prefigured Christ's sacrificed flesh, the “bread of life,” “bread of God.” Niphleseth confirms its real efficacy, since it heals and resurrects, just as the Eucharist is supposed to do in the Roman Church. Duval concludes that Rabelais' portrayal of the entirely carnal Andouilles and the mustard that heals the flesh is an attack on the Church that “wallows in the flesh” of the Eucharist and neglects its spiritual and symbolic aspect.⁴¹ The shocking nature of the parody is not meant to strike at the mystery of the Last Supper, but as we have seen, it aims at the Lutherans'—even more than at the Church's—misinterpretation of it, since both believed in the Bodily Presence at the Eucharist.

Further scrutiny of the mustard symbolism leads to yet greater shock: “the mustard-barrel” is an expression designating the lower abdomen, bowels, and their contents.⁴² Hence, to quote a letter by Fred Marshall, the Andouilles' flying pig “shits mustard like an incontinent sea gull”—twenty-seven barrels worth.⁴³ The Andouilles, “[où] plustoust l’on trouvoit merde que fiel” (“in whom one finds more turds than bile”),⁴⁴ are healed, even born again, by means of a doctrine Rabelais considers to be barrels of airborne fecal matter; in modern parlance, “the shit flies high”! What more logical “Sangréal” and “Bausme céleste” could there be for a folk composed of bits of tripe stuffed into lengths of intestinal wall?

The number 27 is used here because it bears a heavy load of religious symbolism. It is 3 × 9, and therefore signifies the Trinity multiplied by theology (for Dante and succeeding interpreters, 9 is the number of theology). 2 + 7 = 9; therefore, 27 again proves to be a number signifying theology. There can be no doubt that the mustard spread over the battlefield is theological, and that it most likely stands for Luther's doctrines and teachings.

Why, we still ask ourselves, is Rabelais at such pains to show that Pantagruel and his men have so much in common with the Andouilles by claiming commonality in Mardi gras? Gymnaste's attempt to abort the battle hinges upon this similarity. Rabelais, despite his biting satire, clearly has more sympathy for the Andouilles than for Quaresmeprenant. The Andouilles' problem, however, is the same as that of Quaresmeprenant and the Physetère: Excess. Quaresmeprenant is excessively dogmatic, bigoted, ascetic; the Physetère excessively large, aggressive, overblown; the Andouilles, bulging with meat and fat, exemplify the “material bodily lower stratum,” to borrow a phrase from Mikhail Bakhtin. Panurge had characterized his and his companions' situation as “between the hammer and the anvil” when discussing possible battle against Quaresmeprenant as allies of the Andouilles. Between radical reformers and arch conservatives in the Church, moderation is in danger of being crushed, and yet Pantagruel will maintain his ideals regardless of risk. To quote his earlier remark: “Médiocrité est en tous cas louée” (“Moderation is to be praised in all cases”).⁴⁵ And herein lies the lesson that this series of verbal emblems has taught us.

Notes

1. Michel Jeanneret, “Rabelais, les monstres et l’interprétation des signes” (Quart Livre 18-42) in Raymond C. La Charité, Writing the Renaissance: Essays on Sixteenth-Century French Literature, in Honor of Floyd Gray. Lexington, Ky.: French Forum, 1992, 65-76, here 74-75.

2. Jerome Schwartz, Irony and Ideology in Rabelais: Structures of Subversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 1-6 passim.

3. Barbara Bowen, “L’Episode des Andouilles (Rabelais, Quart Livre, chapitres XXXV-XLIIII), esquisse d’une méthode de lecture,” Cahiers de Varsovie 8 (1981): 111-26; Edwin M. Duval, “La messe, la cène, et le voyage sans fin du Quart Livre,” Etudes rabelaisiennes 21 (1988); F.W. Marshall, “The Great Allegory,” Australian Journal of French Studies 26 (1989): 12-51; Paul J. Smith, Voyage et écriture: Etude sur le Quart Livre de Rabelais (Geneva: Droz, 1987).

4. François Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Guy Demerson (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), chaps. 29-42.

5. See, e.g., Jeanneret, “Rabelais, les monstres,” 42; Samuel Kinser, Rabelais' Carnival: Text, Context, Metatext (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 109-18.

6. Trésor de la langue française: dictionnaire de la langue du XIXe et du XXe siecle (1789-1960).

7. François Rabelais, “Brièfve déclaration,” Oeuvres complètes, ed. Demerson, 778.

8. Barbara Bowen, “Lenten Eels and Carnival Sausages,” L’Esprit créateur 21 (1981): 12-25.

9. Alban Krailsheimer, “The Andouilles of the Quart Livre,” in François Rabelais: Ouvrage publié pour le 4e centenaire de sa mort, 1553-1953 (Geneva: Droz, 1953), 231.

10. Marichal, Robert, “Rabelais et les Censures de la Sorbonne,” in Le Quart Livre de 1548, Etudes rabelaisiennes, 9 (1971): 138-41.

11. Kinser, Rabelais' Carnival, 95, n. 6.

12. Ibid., 100-101.

13. Bowen, “L’Episode des Andouilles,” 112-13; my trans.

14. Larousse étymologique.

15. Oeuvres complètes, ed. Demerson, 40.690: “It was a marvelous invention, arranged in such a way that it hurled cannon balls and steel feathered bolts from the great bombards in rows around it, and within its confines more than two hundred men could shelter and fight.”

16. See Dictionnaire de la langue française, ed. E. Littré (Paris, Hachette, 1873-1877), s.v. “truie”: “It was a great invention called a Sow, arranged in such a way that it hurled heavy stones, and within its confines at least a hundred men could be accommodated.”

17. Virgil, Aeneid, book 12.

18. Bowen, “Lenten Eels,” passim; Kinser, Rabelais' Carnival, 67-101.

19. Weinberg, Florence, The Wine and the Will: Rabelais' Bacchic Christianity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972), 45-66.

20. Duval, “La messe,” 138; translation mine; “Il s’agit moins d’une Cène spécifiquement réformée que d’une de ces agapés, ou cènes laïques et non-sacramentelles, tant pratiquées par les ‘saincts Christians' de l’Eglise primitive’ …”

21. Ibid.

22. Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Demerson, Le Tiers Livre, 4:387.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., 35.678, n. 6.

25. Bowen, “Lenten Eels,” 23.

26. Exsurge Domine is dated June 15, 1520: “Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar has invaded thy vineyard. Arise, O Peter, and consider the case of the Holy Roman Church, the mother of all churches, consecrated by thy blood. Arise, O Paul, who by thy teaching and death hast and dost illumine the Church. Arise, all ye saints, and the whole universal Church, whose interpretation of Scripture has been assailed. We can scarcely express our grief over the ancient heresies which have been revived in Germany. We are the more downcast because she was always in the forefront of the war on heresy. Our pastoral office can no longer tolerate the pestiferous virus of the following forty-one errors. [They are enumerated.] We can no longer suffer the serpent to creep through the field of the Lord. The books of Martin Luther which contain these errors are to be examined and burned. As for Martin himself, good God, what office of paternal love have we omitted in order to recall him from his errors? Have we not offered him a safe conduct and money for the journey? [Such an offer never reached Luther.] And he has the temerity to appeal to a future council although our predecessors, Pius II and Julius II, subjected such appeals to the penalties of heresy. Now therefore we give Martin sixty days in which to submit, dating from the time of the publication of this bull in his district. Anyone who presumes to infringe our excommunication and anathema will stand under the wrath of Almighty God and of the apostles Peter and Paul.” Bulla contra errores Martini Lutheri et sequacium, quoted in Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950), 147.

27. The English is from François Rabelais, The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen (Baltimore: Penguin, 1955), 41.538. See Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes, 41.695: “Du cousté de la Transmontane advola un grand, gras, gros, gris pourceau, ayant aesles longues et amples, comme sont les aesles d’un moulin à vent. Et estoit le pennaige rouge cramoisy, comme est d’un Phoenicoptère, qui en Langue-goth est appelé flammant. Les oeilz avoit rouges et flamboyans, comme un pyrope; les aureilles verdes comme une esmeraulde prassine; les dens jaulnes comme un topaze; la queue longue, noire comme marbre Lucullian; les pieds blancs, diaphanes et transparens comme un diamant, et estoient largement pattez, comme sont des oyes et comme jadis à Tholose les portoit la royne Pédauque. Et avoit un collier d’or au coul, autour duquel estoient quelques letres Ionicques, desquelles je ne peuz lire que deux mots: HYS ATHENAN, pourceau Minerve enseignat.”

28. J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols. 2d ed. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971).

29. Camille Leonard, Speculum Lapidum (Paris, 1610); J. P. Valeriano Bolzanii, Hieroglyphica, sive de Sacris Aegyptiorum Literis Commentari (Basel, 1556).

30. Leonard, Speculum Lapidum.

31. Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbols.

32. Leonard, Speculum Lapidum.

33. Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbols.

34. Leonard, Speculum Lapidum.

35. Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbold.

36. Martin Luther, “This Is My Body,” in Works, vol. 37, ed. Robert H. Fisher and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia, Muhlenberg Press, 1961), 80, n. 135.

37. Ibid., 67.

38. Ibid., 79

39. Ibid., 7.

40. Adagia, 1.1.40.

41. Duval, “La messe,” 136-37.

42. Cotton, Charles. Scarronides, or, Virgile travestie (London: Cotes for H. Brome, 1664), 54, 10.

43. Fred Marshall, Letter to the author, Feb 14, 1992; quoted by permission.

44. Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes, 4.696.

45. Rabelais, Oeuvres complètes, Tiers livre, 13.417.