[Gargantua and Pantagruel<br> Book III. by Francois Rabelais]@TWC D-Link book
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Book III.

BOOK III
3/13

Drink then,--so, to the purpose.

Hearken now whilst I give you notice, to the end that you may not, like infidels, be by your simplicity abused, that in his time he was a rare philosopher and the cheerfullest of a thousand.

If he had some imperfection, so have you, so have we; for there is nothing, but God, that is perfect.

Yet so it was, that by Alexander the Great, although he had Aristotle for his instructor and domestic, was he held in such estimation, that he wished, if he had not been Alexander, to have been Diogenes the Sinopian.
When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of Corinth, the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their spies that he with a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against them, were all of them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and therefore were not neglective of their duty in doing their best endeavours to put themselves in a fit posture to resist his hostile approach and defend their own city.
Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables, bestial, corn, wine, fruit, victuals, and other necessary provision.
Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol.

Everyone did watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket.
Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs.


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