第 16 节
作者:
老是不进球 更新:2021-02-20 14:50 字数:9322
…
Arise; and fly
The reeling faun; the sensual feast;
Strive upwards; working out the beast;
And let the ape and tiger die。
But to return。 Down among them there at Montpellier; like a
brilliant meteor; flashed this wonderful Rabelais; in the year 1530。
He had fled; some say; for his life。 Like Erasmus; he had no mind
to be a martyr; and he had been terrified at the execution of poor
Louis de Berquin; his friend; and the friend of Erasmus likewise。
This Louis de Berquin; a man well known in those days; was a gallant
young gentleman and scholar; holding a place in the court of Francis
I。; who had translated into French the works of Erasmus; Luther; and
Melancthon; and had asserted that it was heretical to invoke the
Virgin Mary instead of the Holy Spirit; or to call her our Hope and
our Life; which titlesBerquin averredbelonged alone to God。
Twice had the doctors of the Sorbonne; with that terrible
persecutor; Noel Beda; at their head; seized poor Berquin; and tried
to burn his books and him; twice had that angel in human form;
Marguerite d'Angouleme; sister of Francis I。; saved him from their
clutches; but when Francistaken prisoner at the battle of Pavia
at last returned from his captivity in Spain; the suppression of
heresy and the burning of heretics seemed to him and to his mother;
Louise of Savoy; a thank…offering so acceptable to God; that Louis
Berquinwho would not; in spite of the entreaties of Erasmus;
purchase his life by silencewas burnt at last on the Place de
Greve; being first strangled; because he was of gentle blood。
Montpellier received its famous guest joyfully。 Rabelais was now
forty…two years old; and a distinguished savant; so they excused him
his three years' undergraduate's career; and invested him at once
with the red gown of the bachelors。 That red gownor; rather; the
ragged phantom of itis still shown at Montpellier; and must be
worn by each bachelor when he takes his degree。 Unfortunately;
antiquarians assure us that the precious garment has been renewed
again and againthe students having clipped bits of it away for
relics; and clipped as earnestly from the new gowns as their
predecessors had done from the authentic original。
Doubtless; the coming of such a man among them to lecture on the
Aphorisms of Hippocrates; and the Ars Parva of Galen; not from the
Latin translations then in use; but from original Greek texts; with
comments and corrections of his own; must have had a great influence
on the minds of the Montpellier students; and still more influence
and that not altogether a good onemust Rabelais's lighter talk
have had; as he loungedso the story goesin his dressing…gown
upon the public place; picking up quaint stories from the cattle…
drivers off the Cevennes; and the villagers who came in to sell
their olives and their grapes; their vinegar and their vine…twig
faggots; as they do unto this day。 To him may be owing much of the
sound respect for natural science; and much; too; of the contempt
for the superstition around them; which is notable in that group of
great naturalists who were boys in Montpellier at that day。
Rabelais seems to have liked Rondelet; and no wonder: he was a
cheery; lovable; honest little fellow; very fond of jokes; a great
musician and player on the violin; and who; when he grew rich; liked
nothing so well as to bring into his house any buffoon or strolling…
player to make fun for him。 Vivacious he was; hot…tempered;
forgiving; and with a power of learning and a power of work which
were prodigious; even in those hard…working days。 Rabelais chaffs
Rondelet; under the name of Rondibilis; for; indeed; Rondelet grew
up into a very round; fat; little man; but Rabelais puts excellent
sense into his mouth; cynical enough; and too cynical; but both
learned and humorous; and; if he laughs at him for being shocked at
the offer of a fee; and taking it; nevertheless; kindly enough;
Rondelet is not the first doctor who has done that; neither will he
be the last。
Rondelet; in his turn; put on the red robe of the bachelor; and
received; on taking his degree; his due share of fisticuffs from his
dearest friends; according to the ancient custom of the University
of Montpellier。 He then went off to practise medicine in a village
at the foot of the Alps; and; half…starved; to teach little
children。 Then he found he must learn Greek; went off to Paris a
second time; and alleviated his poverty there somewhat by becoming
tutor to a son of the Viscomte de Turenne。 There he met Gonthier of
Andernach; who had taught anatomy at Louvain to the great Vesalius;
and learned from him to dissect。 We next find him setting up as a
medical man amid the wild volcanic hills of the Auvergne; struggling
still with poverty; like Erasmus; like George Buchanan; like almost
every great scholar in those days; for students then had to wander
from place to place; generally on foot; in search of new teachers;
in search of books; in search of the necessaries of life; undergoing
such an amount of bodily and mental toil as makes it wonderful that
all of them did notas some of them doubtless diddie under the
hard training; or; at best; desert the penurious Muses for the
paternal shop or plough。
Rondelet got his doctorate in 1537; and next year fell in love with
and married a beautiful young girl called Jeanne Sandre; who seems
to have been as poor as he。
But he had gained; meanwhile; a powerful patron; and the patronage
of the great was then as necessary to men of letters as the
patronage of the public is now。 Guillaume Pellicier; Bishop of
Maguelonneor rather then of Montpellier itself; whither he had
persuaded Paul II。 to transfer the ancient seewas a model of the
literary gentleman of the sixteenth century; a savant; a diplomat; a
collector of books and manuscripts; Greek; Hebrew; and Syriac; which
formed the original nucleus of the present library of the Louvre; a
botanist; too; who loved to wander with Rondelet collecting plants
and flowers。 He retired from public life to peace and science at
Montpellier; when to the evil days of his master; Francis I。;
succeeded the still worse days of Henry II。; and Diana of Poitiers。
That Jezebel of France could conceive no more natural or easy way of
atoning for her own sins than that of hunting down heretics; and
feasting her wicked eyesso it is saidupon their dying torments。
Bishop Pellicier fell under suspicion of heresy: very probably
with some justice。 He fell; too; under suspicion of leading a life
unworthy of a celibate churchman; a fault whichif it really
existedwas; in those days; pardonable enough in an orthodox
prelate; but not so in one whose orthodoxy was suspected。 And for
awhile Pellicier was in prison。 After his release he gave himself
up to science; with Rondelet and the school of disciples who were
growing up around him。 They rediscovered together the Garum; that
classic sauce; whose praises had been sung of old by Horace;
Martial; and Ausonius; and so child…like; superstitious if you will;
was the reverence in the sixteenth century for classic antiquity;
that when Pellicier and Rondelet discovered that the Garum was made
from the fish called Picarelcalled Garon by the fishers of
Antibes; and Giroli at Venice; both these last names corruptions of
the Latin Gerresthen did the two fashionable poets of France;
Etienne Dolet and Clement Marot; think it not unworthy of their muse
to sing the praises of the sauce which Horace had sung of old。 A
proud day; too; was it for Pellicier and Rondelet; when wandering
somewhere in the marshes of the Camargue; a scent of garlic caught
the nostrils of the gentle bishop; and in the lovely pink flowers of
the water…germander he recognised the Scordium of the ancients。
〃The discovery;〃 says Professor Planchon; 〃made almost as much noise
as that of the famous Garum; for at that moment of naive fervour on
behalf of antiquity; to re…discover a plant of Dioscorides or of
Pliny was a good fortune and almost an event。〃
I know not whether; after his death; the good bishop's bones reposed
beneath some gorgeous tomb; bedizened with the incongruous half…
Pagan statues of the Renaissance; but this at least is certain; that
Rondelet's disciples imagined for him a monument more enduring than
of marble or of brass; more graceful and more curiously wrou