All Athirst: Birth of Pantagruel: Rabelais On Drought of 1532

Does every Age await their own Godot? The child of Gargantua was so huge when he was born, that the birthing killed his mother. When Pantagruel was born there was such a severe drought that the whole world was thirsty. When he was born the midwives saw,

"... as the mid-wives were waiting to receive the child, there came out first from the mother's belly sixty-eight mule drivers, each one leading by the halter a mule loaded with salt; after these came nine dromedaries loaded with hams and smoked beef-tongues, seven camels loaded with eels, and, finally, twenty-four cartloads of leeks, garlic, onions, and shallots, all of which greatly frightened the said mid-wives." [p. 237]

One of the midwives did speak up and said this plenty was welcome.

"That's a goodly store; and it's a lucky thing, for we drink only in miserly fashion these days.... It is a good sign, for those are the goads of wine.""

Rabelais is setting up the newly born hero here hopefully, as a bringer of wine. The problem was everyone was already thirsty as there had been a great drought for some years. Salt, ham, eels, all very salty and with onions and garlic on mules, camels, carts and drivers, not terribly sweet. Without a drink in sight, more salty foods can only increase the desire. The drought had already been long and this, Rabelais tells us, was the reason the child was given his name. 'You should note,' he tells us,

"... that there was, that year, so great a drought throughout all the land of Africa that thirty-six months, three weeks, four days, and a little more than thirteen hours passed without any rain, and with the sun so intense that all the earth was dried up. It was not more scorched in the time of Elijah than it was then, for there was not a single tree on the earth that had either leaf or flower. The grass was without any green, the river beds were empty, and the fountains were dry; the poor fish, tired of their own element, wandered over the earth, crying horribly; the birds fell from the air for lack of dew; and the wolves, foxes, deer, wild boars, fallow-deer, hares, rabbits, weasels, martins, badgers, and other beasts were to be found dead in the fields, their jaws dropping open."

That was sad enough. The effects on humans was just as bad.

"As for human beings, that was a great pity. You might have seen them with their tongues hanging out, like rabbits which have been running for six hours; some cast themselves into wells, while others crawled into the bellies of cows to find a little shade.... The whole country was at anchor. It was a pitiable thing to see the effort which human beings expended in protecting themselves against the horrible thirst. It was all they could do to save the holy water in the churches from being used up; but an order went out from the council of Messieurs the Cardinals and the Holy Father that no one was to take more than a single lick at it. And so, whenever anyone entered a church, you might have seen a score of poor thirsty devils running up behind the one who distributed the water, their chops open, in the hope of catching some little drop, like the Wicked Rich Man, for they did not want any to go to waste. Oh, how happy that year was the one who had a nice, cool, well-furnished cellar!" [p 235]

As if that weren't bad enough, Rabelais explains that the very saltiness of the sea occurred because the sun had veered off course and grown too close to the earth. Phoebus Apollo in his daily traversing of the sky, carrying the sun in his chariot, one day, lent the duties to his son. It was he, who, going off course, burnt up the earth, the sea, even the Milky Way. The earth became so scorched that it had a tremendous outpouring of sweat, so that even the ocean gave up water, but retained its salt, just like sweat. This is a backwards construction of course, just like many other Rabelais inventions. He affirms that sweat is salty, "... if you care to taste your own," and so, must also be the oceans and the earth.

Others affirm, he tells us, that this very year that Pantagruel was born, the earth was witnessed to sweat great copious drops.

"...[O]ne Friday, when everybody was engaged in devotions and they were having a fine procession, with many litanies and beautiful chants, begging Almighty God that he would deign to look upon them with an eye of mercy in their discomfort -- while this was taking place, there were clearly seen going up from the earth great drops of water, as when someone is sweating copiously. And the poor people began to rejoice, as if it had been something that was to do them good, for as certain of them remarked, there was not a single drop of moisture in the air from which they might hope for rain, and so the earth was supplying the lack." [p. 236]

Not like the source of the Nile, Rabelais counters Seneca, he says. [Samuel Putnam, our translator, in his notes, tells us that the reference to Seneca is probably wrong. But a parallel story might be found in the third book of Seneca's Questiones Naturalium and credited to Theophrastus.] When people tried to catch a capful of this dew as it rose, Rablais declares, it tasted like brine, and was saltier than seawater.

This then was the state of the world when Pantagruel was born. His father named him this on account of the extreme condition they found themselves in. Panta is Greek for 'all' and, Rabelais tells us, Gruel is Hagarene for 'thirsty'. The Hagars were a biblical tribe that attacked the Jews of Saul and, in Rabelais' time, conflated with Muslims in Palestine. Now they are assumed to be the same as Ishmaelites. [p. 238]

But, it cannot be left out, that the Wicked Rich Man, Putnam tells us, is the same told as that rich man in hell that met Lazarus, in the gospel of Luke 16: 19-25. And what about the mother? She was the daughter of the king of the Amaurots that one can find in Thomas More's Utopia. But she was suffocated during childbirth, because the baby was 'so marvelously big and heavy' it could not come to light without killing her. In another sad aside, it is a pity this child did not have a mother in his life. Rabelais deals harshly with her single role in the child's life.

It is assumed today that Rabelais began this story because of a great drought in Europe in the summer of 1532.
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from pp. 234 - 238: Samuel Putnam: Portable Rabelais: Viking Portable Library: Second Printing: The Colonial Press Inc. USA, 1955