Here, Screech notes, begins the enigma of Pantagruelion, enigmatic encomium of hemp and of linen, treated as a single plant. In exulting hemp-linen, Rabelais reestablished a deification. Pliny treated them as a natural miracle. Polydore Vergile, De Inventoribus rerum, 3.6, begins his consideration of these plants with the words, "Mille lini usus sunt." Jerome Tragus, De Sturpium nomenclaturis (Strasbourg, 1552), 1.335, goes as far as saying, "Linum magnae est utilitatis, sed in multis et varris modis incommodat, quae omina ordine describere nulli hominum possibile existimo posteaquam novis subinde artibus Linum praebet."
Linon [Linum usitatissimum, flax]. Linum Somme call it Linocalamis, somme Anion, some Linon agrion, the Romanes Linomyrum, the Africanes Zeraphis] is commonly known, but the seed hath ye same power to Foenigraes discussing and mollifying all inflammation inwardly & outwardly... Pliny saith that it is to be sowne in gravelly places, especially in furrowes: and that it burneth the ground, and maketh it worser: which thing also Virgil testifieth in his Georgickes. In English thus: Flaxe and Otes sowne consume The moisture of a fertile field: The same worketh Poppy, whose Juyce a deadly sleepe doth yeeld. Flaxe is sowne in the spring, it floureth in June and July. After it is cut down (as Pliny lib 19. cap 1 saith) the stalks are put into the water, subject to the heat of the Sun, & some weight laid on them to be steeped therein; the loosenes of the rinde is a signe when it is well steeped: then it is taken up and dried in the Sun, and after used as most his wives can tell better than my selfe. Pantagruelion. nom plaisante donné par Rabelais au chanvre, parce que, Pantagruel représentant un roi de France, probablement Henri II, et la corde de chanvre servant à pendre, le pantagruelion figurain un doit régalien. |