If we must fast, said Pantagruel, I see no other remedy but to get rid of it as soon as we can, as we would out of a bad way.

I'll in that space of time somewhat look over my papers, and examine whether the marine study be as good as ours at land.

For Plato, to describe a silly, raw, ignorant fellow, compares him to those that are bred on shipboard, as we would do one bred up in a barrel, who never saw anything but through the bung-hole.
To tell you the short and the long of the matter, our fasting was most hideous and terrible; for the first day we fasted on fisticuffs, the second at cudgels, the third at sharps, and the fourth at blood and wounds: such was the order of the fairies..