The Argument.

  Here I intend mysteriously to sing
    With a pen pluck’d from Fame’s own wing,
Of Gargantua that learn’d breech-wiping king.

Decade the First.

   I.

  Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze
    Benumbs me!  I must sound the praise
Of him hath turn’d this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.

   II.

  What wit would not court martyrdom to hold
    Upon his head a laurel of gold,
Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told: 

   III.

  And such a one is this, art’s masterpiece,
    A thing ne’er equall’d by old Greece: 
A thing ne’er match’d as yet, a real Golden Fleece.

   IV.

  Vice is a soldier fights against mankind;
    Which you may look but never find: 
For ’tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.

   V.

  And thus he rails at drinking all before ’em,
    And for lewd women does be-whore ’em,
And brings their painted faces and black patches to th’ quorum.

   VI.

  To drink he was a furious enemy
    Contented with a six-penny—­
(with diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie—­

   VII.

  And for tobacco’s pate-rotunding smoke,
    Much had he said, and much more spoke,
But ’twas not then found out, so the design was broke.

   VIII.

  Muse!  Fancy!  Faith! come now arise aloud,
    Assembled in a blue-vein’d cloud,
And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud.

   IX.

  To praise it further I would now begin
    Were ’t now a thoroughfare and inn,
It harbours vice, though ’t be to catch it in a gin.

   X.

  Therefore, my Muse, draw up thy flowing sail,
    And acclamate a gentle hail
With all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail.

Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri. 
  Imparibus restat danda secunda modis. 
Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam,
  Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais.

Malevolus.

(Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost; and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again, craves thy pardon for such as thou may’st meet with.)

The Author’s Prologue to the First Book.

Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious pockified blades (for to you, and none else, do I dedicate my writings), Alcibiades, in that dialogue of Plato’s, which is entitled The Banquet, whilst he was setting forth the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose, said that he resembled the Silenes.  Silenes of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese,