Notes

Utilissima funibus cannabis seritur

ipsa cannabis vellitur post vindemiam ac lucubrationibus decorticata purgatur.

The hemp plant itself is plucked after the vintage, and peeling and cleaning it is a task done by candle light.

Comment Pantagruel deffit les troys cens geans armez de pierre de taille, Et Loupgarou leur capitaine

Adonc se retirerent tous les geans avecques leur roy là aupres où estoient les flaccons, & Panurge & ses compaignons avecques eulx, qui contrefaisoit ceulx qui ont eu la verolle: car il tortoit la gueule & retiroit les doigts, & en parolle enrouée leur dist.

Ie renye dieu compaignons, nous ne faisons point la guerre, donnez nous à repaistre avecques vous ce pendant que nos maistres s’entrebattent.

Comment Epistemon qui avoit la teste tranchée, fut guery habillement par Panurge. Et des nouvelles des diables, & de damnez.

Ceste desconfite gygantale parachevée Pantagruel se retira au lieu des flaccons, & appela Panurge & les aultres, lesquelz se rendirent à luy sains & saulves, excepté Eusthenes qu’ung des geans avoit esgratigné quelque peu au visaige, ainsi qu’il l’esgorgetoit. Et Epistemon qui ne comparoit point. Dont Pantagruel fut si dolent qu’il se voulut tuer soymesmes, mais Panurge luy dist. Dea seigneur attendez ung peu, nous le chercherons entre les mors, & verrons la verité du tout. Ainsi doncques comme ilz cherchoient, ilz le trouverent tout roidde mort & la teste entre ses bras toute sanglante. Dont Eusthenes s’escrya. Ha male mort, nous as tu tollu le plus parfaict des hommes. A laquelle voix se leva Pantagruel au plus grand deuil qu’on veit iamais au monde: mais Panurge dist. Enfans ne pleurez point, il est encores tout chault. Ie vous le gueriray aussi sain qu’il fut iamais. Et ce disant print la teste & la tint sus sa braguette chauldement qu’elle ne print vent, & Eusthenes & Carpalim porterent le corps au lieu où ilz avoient bancquetté: non par espoir que iamais guerist, mais affin que Pantagruel le veist. Toutesfois Panurge les reconfortoit, disant. Si ie ne le guerys ie veulx perdre la teste (qui est le gaige d’ung fol) laissez ces pleurs & me aydez. Adonc nettoya tresbien de beau vin blanc le col, & puis la teste: & y synapiza de pouldre [de diamerdys] de Aloes qu’il portoit tousiours en une de ses fasques: apres les oignit de ie ne sçay quel oingnement, & les aiusta iustement vene contre vene, nerf contre ner, spondyle contre spondyle, affin qu’il ne feut torty colly (car telz gens il hayssoit de mort) & ce faict luy fist deux ou troys poins de agueille, affin qu’elle ne tombast de rechief: puis mist à l’entour ung peu de unguent, qu’il appelloit resuscitatif. Et soubdain Epistemon commença à respirer, puis à ouvrir les yeulx, puis à baisler, puis à esternuer, puis feist ung gros pet de mesnage, dont dist Panurge, à ceste heure il est guery asseurement: & luy bailla à boire d’ung grand villain vin blanc avecques tout une roustie succrée. En ceste façon fut Epistemon guery habilement, excepté qu’il fut enroué plus de troys sepmaines, et eut ung toux seiche, dont il ne peut oncques guerir, sinon à force de boire.
Et là commença parler, disant. Qu’il avoit veu les diables, & avoit parlé à Lucifer familierement, & faict grand chere en enfer, et par les champs Elisées.

enrouer

Enroüé: Hoarse, whizzing, or wheazing, of a broken sound.

chanvre, cigalles

L’hirondelle et les petits oiseaux

Une hirondelle en ses voyages
Avait beaucoup appris. Quiconque a beaucoup vu
Peut avoir beaucoup retenu.
Celle-ci prévoyait jusqu’aux moindres orages,
Et devant qu’ils ne fussent éclos,
Les annonçait aux matelots.
Il arriva qu’au temps que le chanvre se sème,
Elle vit un manant en couvrir maints sillons.
«Ceci ne me plaît pas, dit-elle aux oisillons:
Je vous plains, car pour moi, dans ce péril extrême,
Je saurai m’éloigner, ou vivre en quelque coin.
Voyez-vous cette main qui, par les airs chemine?
Un jour viendra, qui n’est pas loin,
Que ce qu’elle répand sera votre ruine.
De là naîtront engins à vous envelopper,
Et lacets pour vous attraper,
Enfin, mainte et mainte machine
Qui causera dans la saison
Votre mort ou votre prison:
Gare la cage ou le chaudron!
C’est pourquoi, leur dit l’hirondelle,
Mangez ce grain et croyez-moi.»
Les oiseaux se moquèrent d’elle:
Ils trouvaient aux champs trop de quoi.
Quand la chènevière fut verte,
L’hirondelle leur dit: «Arrachez brin à brin
Ce qu’a produit ce mauvais grain,
Ou soyez sûrs de votre perte.
—Prophète de malheur, babillarde, dit-on,
Le bel emploi que tu nous donnes!
Il nous faudrait mille personnes
Pour éplucher tout ce canton.»
La chanvre étant tout à fait crue,
L’hirondelle ajouta: «Ceci ne va pas bien;
Mauvaise graine est tôt venue.
Mais puisque jusqu’ici l’on ne m’a crue en rien,
Dès que vous verrez que la terre
Sera couverte, et qu’à leurs blés
Les gens n’étant plus occupés
Feront aux oisillons la guerre;
Quand reglingettes et réseaux
Attraperont petits oiseaux,
Ne volez plus de place en place,
Demeurez au logis ou changez de climat:
Imitez le canard, la grue ou la bécasse.
Mais vous n’êtes pas en état
De passer, comme nous, les déserts et les ondes,
Ni d’aller chercher d’autres mondes;
C’est pourquoi vous n’avez qu’un parti qui soit sûr,
C’est de vous enfermer aux trous de quelque mur.»
Les oisillons, las de l’entendre,
Se mirent à jaser aussi confusément
Que faisaient les Troyens quand la pauvre Cassandre
Ouvrait la bouche seulement.
Il en prit aux uns comme aux autres:
Maint oisillon se vit esclave retenu.
Nous n’écoutons d’instincts que ceux qui sont les nôtres
Et ne croyons le mal que quand il est venu.

lors que les cigalles commencent s’enrouer

En septembre.

lors les cigalles commencent à s’enrouer

En september — Le chanvre se sème fin mia (cf. La Fontaine, I, 8: L’hirondelle et les petits oiseaux) et se récolte en automne.

cigalles

En septembre.

enrouer

(ancien français ro, rauque, du latin raucus) Rendre la voix sourde ou rauque et voilée : La fumée l’a enrouée.

raucous

raucous (adj.) 1769, from Latin raucus “hoarse,” related to ravus “hoarse,” from Proto-Indoeuropean echoic base *reu- “make hoarse cries” (cf. Sanskrit rayati “barks,” ravati “roars;” Greek oryesthai “to howl, roar;” Latin racco “a roar;” Old Church Slavonic rjevo “I roar;” Lithuanian rekti “roar;” Old English rarian “to wail, bellow”). Middle English had rauc in the same sense, from the same source.

cigale

cigale

la cigale

Suivant les Anciens, la cigale (cicada) évoque l’automne (cf. Juvenal, IX, 68).

cigalles

Cigale: A thick, broad-headed, and mouthless flye, which ordinarily sits on trees, and sings (after her skreaking fashion) both day and night; living onely of the dew of heaven, which shee drawes into her by certaine tongue-like prickles, placed on her breast; she hath [hateth] both old, and cold countries; and therefore we neither have her, nor name for her.

cigale

CIGALE, Espèce d’insecte qui vole, et qui fait un bruit aigre et importun dans les champs, durant les ardeurs de l’été. — Tout aigre qu’est ce bruit, on l’apèle pourtant chant: “Le chant de la cigale; j’ai oui chanter les cigales.”

cigale

Gros insecte homoptère suceur de sève, commun dans le Midi et connu par sa stridulation monotone. [Big homopteran sap-sucking insect, common in the south and known for its monotonous chirp —Editor.]

Croist

Croistre. To increase, grow, thrive, wax bigger, augment; swell, or rise in height, shoot up; come on apace.

Notes

terebinth

Terebinto [Pistacia terebinthus L.]

terebinth

The terebinth has a ‘male’ and a ‘female’ form. The ‘male’ is barren, which is why it is called ‘male’; the fruit of one of the ‘female’ forms is red from the first and as large as an unripe lentil; the other produces a green fruit which subsequently turns red, and, ripening at the same time as the grapes, becomes eventually black and is as large as a bean, but resinous and somewhat aromatic.

terebinth

XII. Syria et terebinthum habet. ex iis mascula est sine fructu, feminarum duo genera: alteri fructus rubet lentis magnitudine, alteri pallidus cum vite maturescit, non grandior faba, odore iucundior, tactu osus. resincirca Iden Troadis et in Macedonia brevis arbor haec atque fruticosa, in Damasco Syriae magna. materies ei admodum lenta ac fidelis ad vetustatem, nigri splendoris, flos racemosus olivae modo, sed rubens, folia densa. fert et folliculos emittentes quaedam animalia ceu culices lentoremque resinosum qui et ex cortice erumpit.

XII. Syria also has the turpentine-tree. Of this the male variety has no fruit, but the female has two kinds of fruit, one of them ruddy and the size of a lentil, while the other is pale, and ripens at the same time as the grape; it is no larger in size than a bean, has a rather agreeable scent, and is sticky to the touch. Round Mount Ida in the Troad and in Macedonia this is a low-growing shrub-like tree, but at Damascus in Syria it is big. Its wood is fairly flexible and remains sound to a great age; it is of a shiny black colour. The flower grows in clusters like the olive, but is crimson in colour, and the foliage is thick. It also bears follicles out of which come insects resembling gnats, and which produce a sticky resinous fluid which also bursts out from its bark.

Melze

Meleses estants si frequentes au territoire d’Embrum & autout de Morienne, ne donneront despense à recouurer. Elles ont leurs semences plus petites que Cyprés, tant en la pommette que au noyau, toutesfois chasque chartée sur le lieu, qui l’entreprendoit, ne cousteroit pas un sou. C’est sur celuy dont la Manne est cueillie, & la grosse Terebenthine & l’Agaric aussi, & dont l’arbre est autant frequent es montaignes des Grisons, nommez en Latin Theti, qu’il fut onc, & es mesmes endroicts dont Tibere Empereur en feit apporter à Rome pour refaire le pont Naumachiarius, qui auoit esté bruslé.

terebinthe

Pline en décrit plusieurs espèces : « Ex his mascula est sine fructu ; feminarum dup genera » (XIII, 12). En réalité, il n’y là qu’une espèce, et dioïque: Pistacia terebinthus L. (Térébinthacées). (Paul Delaunay)

terebinth

terebinth. Forms: theribynte, terebynt, therebinthe, terebynte, -bint, -binthe, teribinth, terebinth. [Old French therebint(e (13th century in Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, Dictionnaire général de la langue française), -binthe, -bin, terebinte (Godefroy Compl.), adaptation of Latin terebinthus (Pliny), adopted from Greek terebinqoj, earlier terbinqoj and terminqoj, probably a foreign word.]

A tree of moderate size, Pistacia Terebinthus, N.O. Anacardiaceæ, a native of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Western Asia, the source of Chian turpentine, and a common object of veneration; also called turpentine tree, and Algerine or Barbary mastic-tree.

Also terebinth tree.

The resin of this tree = turpentine. Obsolete

turpentine

turpentine. Forms: terebentine, -yne (see also terebinthine); terb-, turbentyne; terpentin, turpentyne, -tyn, terpentine, turpentine; turmyntyne, termenteyne. [In 14-15th century terebentyne, terbentyne, adopted from Old French tere-, terbentine, adaptation of Latin terbentina or terebinthina (resina): Already by 1400, Old French had tourbentine (in R. Estienne 1550, turbentine); so English turbentyn and turpentine. The 15-16th century variant termenteyne curiously approaches the earlier Greek terminqinh terebinthine resin, turpentine.]

A term applied originally (as in Greek and Latin) to the semifluid resin of the terebinth tree, Pistacia terebinthus (Chian or Cyprian turpentine); now chiefly to the various oleoresins which exude from coniferous trees, consisting of more or less viscid solutions of resin in a volatile oil.

Terebinth

Pistacia terebinthus, known commonly as terebinth and turpentine tree, is a species of Pistacia, native to the Mediterranean region from the western regions of Morocco, Portugal and the Canary Islands, to Greece and western Turkey. In the eastern shores of the Mediterranean sea — Syria, Lebanon and Israel — a similar species, Pistacia palaestina, fills the same ecological niche as this species and is also known as terebinth.

John Chadwick believes that the terebinth is the plant called ki-ta-no in some of the Linear B tablets. He cites the work of a Spanish scholar, J.L. Melena, who had found “an ancient lexicon which showed that kritanos was another name for the turpentine tree, and that the Mycenaean spelling could represent a variant form of this word.”

The word “terebinth” is used (at least in some translations) for a tree mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament), where the Hebrew word “elah” (plural “elim”) is used. This probably refers to Pistacia palaestina which is common in the area.

Terebinth from Oricum is referred to in Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 10, line 136, where Ascanius in battle is compared to “ivory skilfully inlaid in […] Orician terebinth” (”inclusum […] Oricia terebintho […] ebur”).

Terebinth is referred to by Robin Lane Fox in Alexander the Great: “When a Persian king took the throne, he attended Pasargadae, site of King Cyrus’s tomb, and dressed in a rough leather uniform to eat a ritual meal of figs, sour milk and leaves of terebinth.”

Ferir

Ferir. To bit, strike; wound, hurt.

absconses

absconses: caché, retiré: Se mist en un lieu abscons (Aimé, Yst. de li Norm., VII, 22)

Impermeables

C’est comme il faut lire, conformément à l’édition de 1547 aux trois de Lyon, & à celle de 1626. Incomprenables est une faute qui l’edition de 1553 s’est glissée dans celle de 1596 & de là dans les nouvelles.

By means of it

Ozell’s note: “By the Help thereof.] This is in imitation of Agrippa, ch. lxxvii of his De vanitate scientiarum.”

impermeable

Ozell’s note: “Impermeable. Impassible. I don’t explain this as if I thought the reader needed to be informed what Impermeable meant, but only for an Opportunity of letting such know, as are possest of the Editions of 1553, 1596, and all the later ones, that, instead of incomprenables (incomprehensible,) they must read it Impermeables, conformable to the Editions of 1547, the three Editions of Lyons, and that of 1626.

impermeables

Cachées, inaccessibles. Rabelais, quoiqu’en général un peu trop hardi a fabriquer des terme nouveaux, rencontre quelquefois si heureusement, qu’on est tentée de regretter que plusieurs de ses expressions ne se soient point conservées. Il n’a point tenu à lui, ni à Amyot, que notre Langue ne fût beaucoup plus riche, plus variée en ses tours, & bien plis harmonieuse, qu’elle ne l’est aujourd’hui.

impermeables

C’est comme il faut lire, conformément à l’édition de 1547, aux trois de Lyon (à celle de 1552), et à celle de 1626. Incomprenables est une faute qui l’edition de 1553 s’est glissée dans celle de 1596, et delà dans les nouvelles. (L.) — Cachées, inaccessibles. Rabelais, dit l’abbé de Marsy, quoiqu’en général un peu trop hardi à fabriquer des termes nouveaux, rencontre quelquefois si heureusement, qu’on est tenté de regretter que plusieurs de ses expressions ne se soient point conservées. Il n’a point tenu à lui ni à Amyot que notre langue ne fût beaucoup plus riche, plus variée en ses tours, et bien plus harmonieuse qu’elle ne l’est aujourd’hui.

Notes

Salamandra

A salamander unharmed in the fire. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 126r

Salamander

Nutrisco & extinguo. La Salemandre avec des flammes de feu, estoit la Devise du feu noble & manifique Roy François

Salamander

Nutrisco et extinguo (I nourish and extinguish)
The salamander, device of François I.

Salamander

Salamander

The salamander, badge of Francis I of France, with his motto: “Nutrisco et extinguo” (“I nourish and extinguish”) – Azay-le-Rideau Castle – Loire Valley (Indre-et-Loire), France

Salamandre

Anguem ex medulla hominis spinae gigni accepimus a multis. pleraque enim occulta et caeca origine proveniunt, etiam in quadripedum genere, sicut salamandrae, animal lacertae figura, stellatum, numquam nisi magnis imbribus proveniens et serenitate deficiens.1 huic tantus rigor ut ignem tactu restinguat non alio modo quam glacies. eiusdem sanie, quae lactea ore vomitur, quacumque parte corporis humani contacta toti defluunt pili, idque quod contactum est colorem in vitiliginem mutat.

We have it from many authorities that a snake may be born from the spinal marrow of a human being. For a number of animals spring from some hidden and secret source, even in the quadruped class, for instance salamanders, a creature shaped like a lizard, covered with spots, never appearing except in great rains and disappearing in fine weather. It is so chilly that it puts out fire by its contact, in the same way as ice does. It vomits from its mouth a milky slaver, one touch of which on any part of the human body causes all the hair to drop off, and the portion touched changes its colour and breaks out in a tetter.

Salamander

16 Nutrisco & extinguo.

La Salemandre avec des flammes de feu, estoit la Devise du feu noble & manifique Roy François, & aussi au paravant de Charles Conte d’Angoulesme son pere. Pline dit que tell beste par la froidure esteint le feu comme glace, autres disent qu’elle peut vivre en icelui, et la commune voix qu’elle s’en paist. Tant y ha qu’il me souvient avoir vu une Medaille en bronze dudit feu Roy, peint en jeune adolescent, au revers de laquelle estoit cette Devise de la Salemandre enflammee, avec ce mot Italien: Nudrisco il buono, & spego il reo. Et davantage outre tant de lieus et Palais Royaus, ou pour le jourdhui est enlevee, je l’ay vuë aussi en riche tapisserie à Fonteinebleau, acompagnee de rel Distique:

Ursus astrox, Aquilæq; leves, & tortilis Anguis: Cesserunt flammæ iam Salamandra tuæ.

Alcofribas

Alcofribas. A greedie gultton; a great devourer.
Alebrenne. A Salamander.
Alebromantic. Divination by barley meale mixed with wheat.

salamandre

Comme la salamandre étoit la devise ou l’emblème de François I^er, il doit y avoir ici une allusion à ce prince.

Salamander

Francis I. His well-known device was the salamander, surrounded by flames, with the motto, Nutrisco et extinguo, “I nourish and extinguish,” alluding to the belief current in the middle ages that the salamander had the faculty of living in fire; and also, according to Pliny, of extinguishing it. He says — “He is of so cold a complexion, that if hee doe but youch the fire, hee will quench it as presently as if yce were put into it (Book x., ch. 67).
This motto appears to be a somewhat obscure rendering of one on a medal of Francis, when Comte d’Angoulême, dated 1512: “Nutrisco el buono, stengo el reo,” meaning that a good prince protects the good and expels the bad. Some insist that it was the motto of his fatherl while Mézeerai tells us that it was his tutor, Gouffier, Marquis de Boisy, who, seeing the violent and ungovernable spirit of his pupil, not unmixed with good and useful impulses, selected the salamander for his device, with its appropriate motto. This device appears on all the palaces of Francis I. At Fontainebleau and the Châteaux of the Loire, it is everywhere to be seen; at Chambord, there are nearly four thousand. On the Château d’Azay the salamander is acccompanied by the motto, Ung seul desir; at the “Maison de François I,” at Orleans, built for the Demoiselle d’Heillie, afterwards Duchesse d’Etampes, we find it intermixed with F’s and H’s.
At the meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the king’s guard at the tournament was clothed in blue and yellow, with the salamander embroidered thereon. In the already quoted inventory of the Castle of Edinburgh is —
“Ane moyane of fonte markit with the sallamandre;”
“Ane little gallay cannon of fonte markit with sallamandre;”
and many others.

Salamandre

“Une bieste i r’a Salamandre
Qui en feu vist et si s’en paist,
De cete bieste laine si nast
Dont on fait chaintures et dras
Qu’ai feu durent et n’ardent pas.”
— Gauthier de Metz, L’Image du Monde (1245)
Hence it appears, according to this notice, that asbestos cloth was derived from the salamander.

Salamander

“Huic tantus rigor ut ignem tactu extinguat non alio modo qual glacies” (Pliny x. 67, § 86).

salamander

Salamandra maculosa Laur. (Batraciens Anoures). La légende antique prétendait que la salamandre peut braver les flammes et les éteindre. «Huic tantus rigor, ut ignem restinguat non alio modo qual glacies». (Pline, X, 86.) Dioscoride s’était déjà prononcé contre cette fable: «Salamandra lacertæ genus est, iners, varium, quod frustra creditum est ignibus non uri». (L. II, ch. 54.) Albert le Grand, plus tard, et Rabelais seront de son avis. (Paul Delaunay)

Salamandre

Selon la légende antique, la salamandre peur braver les flammes et les éteindre. François I^er en avait fait son emblème.

Salamandre

Elle passait pour éteindre le feu (Pline, X, 67); légende extrêmement répandue.

Salamander

When I was about five years of age, my father, happening to be in a little room in which they had been washing, and where there was a good fire of oak burning, looked into the flames and saw a little animal resembling a lizard, which could live in the hottest part of that element. Instantly perceiving what it was, he called for my sister and me, and after he had shown us the creature, he gave me a box on the ear. I fell a-crying while he, soothing me with caresses, spoke these words: ‘My dear child, I do not give you that blow for any fault you have committed, but that you may recollect that the little creature you see in the fire is a salamander; such a one as never was beheld before to my knowledge.’ So saying he embraced me, and gave me some money. — Benvenuto Cellini

The salamander (the name possibly coming from the Greek salambe meaning ‘fireplace’) was often visualized as a small dragon or lizard. But, what set the salamander apart from other lizards or serpents was the fact that it was a fire elemental. According to Aristotle and Pliny, the salamander not only resisted fire, but could extinguish it and would charge any flame that it saw as if it were an enemy. Some thought that the reason the salamander was able to withstand and extinguish fire, was that it was incredibly cold, and it would put out fire on contact. The salamander was also considered to be very poisonous, so much so, that a person would die from eating the fruit form a tree around which a salamander had entwined itself.
The foundation of its fire-resistant powers may be based on the fact that the real salamander secretes milky juice form the pores of its body when its irritated. This would doubtless defend the animal for a few moments from fire. Salamanders also are hibernating creatures who often retire to hollow trees or other cavities in the winter, where it coils himself up and remains in a torpid state until the spring. It was therefore sometimes carried in with the fuel to the fire, and the salamander would wake up with only enough time to put for all of its faculties for its defense.

Salamander

Early in the 19th century one key idea was introduced [in the building of safes], the double skin. It was realised that 100mm of insulation between the outer wall and the inner wall would provide great thermal insulation and protect the contents if caught in a fire. The most common insulation used was sawdust, though even greater protection came from filling the gap with water, an idea patented by Thomas Milner in 1830 (Milner is to this day one of the main British safe companies). The name ‘safe’ came from these new fireproof cabinets. At the time it was seen as astonishing that the contents of these safes could survive the heat of a fire (they were sometimes called Salamanders) and safe companies often staged public demonstrations, mounting their safes on large bonfires. Strauss was actually commissioned to write some music for one of these events, he called it the ‘Feufest Polka’.

salamander

salamander. Also salamandre [adopted from French salamandre (12th century), adaptation of Latin salamandra, adopted from Greek salamandra.]

A lizard-like animal supposed to live in, or to be able to endure, fire. Now only allusive.

1525. La Grande Maîtress

p 28. Il est probable que la Grande Maîtresse a subi un radoub, peut-être entre la fin 1529 et 1531. Le carénage précédent a eu lieu en 1525 et Jerôme Doria fait état d’une périodicité de quatre ans pour les carénages. Un document mon daté de la Bibliothèque Impériale de Vienne confirme l’opération: «Lettres permettant à frère Claude d’Ancienville, chevalier de Sant-Jean de Jerusalem, commandeur a’Auxerre, capitaine de la nef la Grande-Maîtresse, d’acheter en Dauphiné et en Provence les bois et cordages nécessaires au radoub de ladite nef, et de les faire mener à Marseille par l’Isère, le Rhône et la Durance sans payer de droits.»

p. 10. Ce fut une grande perte, car cette nef étrait grosse comme une caraque, bien garnie en artillerie au point qu’il n’existait pas à Gênes de semblable caraque.

Le nom de Grande Maîtresse, ou plus préciseément cette appellation, indique que le bâtiment appartenait, ou, plus exactement, avait appartenu, au Grand Maître de France. Il est mentionnée pour des opérations que se déroulent en Méditerranée en 1520, 1525, 1526, 1528 et 1529.

Les inventaires effectués au moment de la vente montrent que la nef était équipée d’une puissante artillerie de bronze, dont plusieurs pièces sont ornées de la salamandre, par exemple: Plus troys couleuvrines bastardes à la samalandre, poysans iii milliers ou environ chacun… Plus deux coulouvrines moyeners à la salamandre, pesans chacune xii quintaulx ou environ.

p. 172. Ancienville, Claude d’ — seigneur de Villiers. Chevalier et commandeur de l’ordre de Saint Jean de Jérusalem, fils de Claude d’Ancienville et d’Andrée de Saint-Benôit, frère d’Antoine et de Jacques d’Ancienville.

Il quitte Rhodes assiégée à bord de son brigantin le 18 juin 1522, apportant à François I^er un message du grand-maitre Villiers de l’Isle Adam qui demande des secours d’urgence.…. En juillet 1527, il est commandant de la Grand Maîtress, qui est à Toulon…. En 1530, des lettres royales l’autorisent à acheter en Dauphiné et en Provence les bois et cordages nécessaires au radoub de la nef et de les faire mener à Marseille.

p. 175. Ancienville, Jacques d’, seigneur de Révillon. Il reçoit, en juin 1537, la permission de faire conduire de Lyon à Marseille sans payer aucun droit de travers, péage et autres, pour l’armement des galères dont il a la charge, 250 quintaux de fer… 500 quintaux de cordages or chanvre….

[Historiquement, le quintal équivalait généralement à 100 livres. Le quintal français ancien valait 100 livres anciennes, donc environ 48,951 kilogrammes. Il faut toutefois noter que le quintal était encore utilisé au début des années 1960 à Strasbourg (67) pour mesurer 50 kg de charbon acheté en sacs.

Les poids de marc constituent un système d’unités de masse utilisé depuis le milieu du xive siècle et sous l’Ancien Régime français. Les poids de marc moyens sont organisés par la pile dite de Charlemagne, un ensemble de pierres de balance en godets s’empilant l’une dans l’autre d’un poids total de 50 marcs, soit environ 12¼ kilogrammes.

La livre des poids de marc ou livre de Troyes, attestée depuis le début du xiiie siècle, valut dans tout le royaume à partir de 1266. La livre de Troyes est en principe douze dixièmes de la livre carolingienne. Cette dernière fut instaurée en 793 par Charlemagne.]

Salamandre

La salamandre, baffie ou lebraude est un amphibien légendaire qui était réputé pour vivre dans le feu et s’y baigner, et ne mourir que lorsque celui-ci s’éteignait. Mentionnée pour la première fois par Pline l’Ancien, la salamandre devint une créature importante des bestiaires médiévaux ainsi qu’un symbole alchimique et héraldique auquel une profonde symbolique est attachée. Ainsi, Paracelse (1493-1541) en faisait l’esprit élémentaire du feu, sous l’apparence d’une belle jeune femme vivant dans les brasiers. D’autres légendes plus tardives en font un animal extrêmement venimeux, capable d’empoisonner l’eau des puits et les fruits des arbres par sa seule présence.

Funeral pyre

Quenching the Funeral pyre.
South Italian Vase-painting.
Pertains to Iliad, 23.250

bust

Bûcher. Néologisme; du lat. bustum, même sens.

bustuary

[Latin bustuarius. Pertaining to the burning or the funeral-pyre] Of or belonging to the funeral pile; funereal.

Notes

Toutes les arbres lanificques des Seres,

116. divisae arboribus patriae. sola India nigrum
fert hebenum, solis est turea virga Sabaeis.
quid tibi odorato referam sudantia ligno
balsamaque et bacas semper frondentis acanthi?
quid nemora Aethiopum molli canentia lana,
velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres?

trees have their allotted climes. India alone bears black ebony; to the Sabaeans alone belongs the frankincense bough. Why should I tell you of the balsams that drip from the fragrant wood, or of the pods of the ever blooming acanthus? Why tell of the Ethiopian groves, all white with downy wool [molli lana, i.e. cotton], or how the Seres comb from leaves their fine fleeces [In Virgil’s time the Romans, knowing nothing of the silkworm, supposed that the silk they imported from the East grew on the leaves of trees] ?

Toutes les arbres lanificques des Seres,

primi sunt hominum qui vocantur Seres, lanicio silvarum nobiles, perfusam aqua depectentes frondium canitiem, unde geminus feminis nostris labos redordiendi fila rursusque texendi: tam multiplici opere, tam longinquo orbe petitur ut in publico matrona traluceat.

The first human occupants are the people called the Chinese, who are famous for the woollen substance [The substance referred to, though confused with silk, is probably cotton made into calico or muslin. For silk see XI. 76] obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves, and so supply our women with the double task of unravelling the threads and weaving them together again; so manifold is the labour employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman matron to flaunt transparent raiment in public.

Attire so many people

eiusdem insulae excelsiore suggestu lanigerae arbores alio modo quam Serum; his folia infecunda quae, ni minora essent, vitium poterant videri. ferunt mali cotonei amplitudine cucurbitas quae maturitate ruptae ostendunt lanuginis pilas ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt.

XXII. arborem vocant gossypinum, fertiliore etiam Tyro minore, quae distat x͞ p. Iuba circa fruticem lanugines esse tradit, linteaque ea Indicis praestantiora, Arabiae autem arborem ex qua vestes faciant cynas vocari, folio palmae simili. sic Indos suae arbores vestiunt.

XXI. In the same gulf is the island of Tyros [now Bahrein, cf. VI. 148]… On a more elevated plateau in the same island there are tree [cotton-trees] that bear wool, but in a different manner to those [serica, silk] of the Chinese, as the leaves of these trees have no growth on them, and might be thought to be vine-leaves were it not that they are smaller; but they bear gourds of the size of a quince, which when they ripen burst open and disclose balls of down from which an expensive linen for clothing is made.

XXII. Their name for this tree is the gossypinus; it also grows in greater abundance on the smaller island of Tyros, which is ten miles distant from the other. Juba says that this shrub has a woolly down growing round it, the fabric made from which is superior to the linen of India. He also says that there is an Arabian tree called the cynas [prhaps Bombas ceiba] from which cloth is made, which has foliage resembling a palm-leaf.

the silk-moth

XXV. Among these is a fourth genus, the silk-moth, which occurs in Assyria; it is larger than the kinds mentioned above. Silk-moths make their nests of mud like a sort of salt; they are attached to a stone, and are so hard that they can scarcely be pierced with javelins. In these nests they make combs on a larger scale than bees do, and then produce a bigger grub.
XXVI. These creatures are also produced in another way. A specially large grub changes into a caterpillar with two projecting horns of a peculiar kind, and then into what is called a cocoon, and this turns into a chrysalis and this in six months into a silk-moth. They weave webs like spiders, producing a luxurious material for women’s dresses, called silk. The process of unravelling these and weaving the thread again was first invented in Cos by a woman named Pamphile, daughter of Plateas, who has the undeniable distinction of having devised a plan to reduce women’s clothing to nakedness.
XXVII. Silk-moths are also reported to be born in the island of Cos, where vapour out of the ground creates life in the blossom of the cypress, terebinth, ash and oak that has been stripped off by rain. First however, it is said, small butterflies are produced that are bare of down, and then as they cannot endure the cold they grow shaggy tufts of hair and equip themselves with thick jackets against winter, scraping together the down of leaves with the roughness of their feet; this is compressed by them into fleeces and worked over by carding with their claws, and then drawn out into woof-threads, and thinned out as if with a comb, and afterwards taken hold of and wrapped round their body in a coiled nest. Then (they say) they are taken away by a man, put in earthenware vessels and reared with warmth and a diet of bran, and so a peculiar kind of feathers sprout out, clad with which they are sent out to other tasks; but tufts of wool plucked off are softened with moisture and then thinned out into threads with a rush spindle. Nor have even men been ashamed to make use of these dresses, because of their lightness in summer: so far have our habits departed from wearing a leather cuirass that even a robe is considered a burden! All the same we so far leave the Assyrian silk-moth to women.

Toutes les arbres lanificques des Seres,

XXI. Tyros (Tylos) insula in eodem sinu est, repleta silvis qua spectat orientem quaque et ipsa aestu maris perfunditur. magnitudo singulis arboribus fici, flos suavitate inenarrabili, pomum lupino simile, propter asperitatem intactum omnibus animalibus. eiusdem insulae excelsiore suggestu lanigerae arbores alio modo quam Serum; his folia infecunda quae, ni minora essent, vitium poterant videri. ferunt mali cotonei amplitudine cucurbitas quae maturitate ruptae ostendunt lanuginis pilas ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt.
XXII. arborem vocant gossypinum, fertiliore etiam Tyro minore, quae distat x͞ p. Iuba circa fruticem lanugines esse tradit, linteaque ea Indicis praestantiora, Arabiae autem arborem ex qua vestes faciant cynas vocari, folio palmae simili. sic Indos suae arbores vestiunt. in Tyris autem et alia arbor floret albae violae specie, sed magnitudine quadruplici, sine odore, quod miremur in eo tractu.

XXI. In the same gulf is the island of Tyros [now Bahrein, cf. VI. 148.], which is covered with forests in the part facing east, where it also is flooded by the sea at high tide. Each of the trees is the size of a fig-tree; they have a flower with an indescribably sweet scent and the fruit resembles a lupine, and is so prickly that no animal can touch it. On a more elevated plateau in the same island there are trees [Cotton-trees] that bear wool, but in a different manner to those [Serica, silk] of the Chinese, as the leaves of these trees have no growth on them, and might be thought to be vine-leaves were it not that they are smaller; but they bear gourds of the size of a quince, which when they ripen burst open and disclose balls of down from which an expensive linen for clothing is made.
XXII. Their name for this tree is the gossypinus; it also grows in greater abundance on the smaller island of Tyros, which is ten miles distant from the other. Juba says that this shrub has a woolly down growing round it, the fabric made from which is superior to the linen of India. He also says that there is an Arabian tree called the cynasc from which cloth is made, which has foliage resembling a palm-leaf. Similarly the natives of India are provided with clothes by their own trees. But in the Tyros islands there is also another tree [Tamarind] with a blossom like a white violet but four times as large; it has no scent, which may well surprise us in that region of the world.

Toutes les arbres lanificques des Seres,

Lanigeras Serum in mentione gentis eius narravimus, item Indiae arborum magnitudinem. unam e peculiaribus Indiae Vergilius celebravit hebenum, nusquam alibi nasci professus.
We have already described the wool-bearing trees of the Chinese in making mention of that race, and we have spoken of the large size of the trees in India. One of those peculiar to India, the ebony, is spoken of in glowing terms by Virgil, who states that it does not grow in any other country.

in the land of the Seres

Now while hemp and flax, both the ordinary and the fine variety, are sown by those whose soil is suited to grow it, the threads from which the Seres make the dresses are produced from no bark, but in a different way as follows. There is in the land of the Seres an insect which the Greeks call ser, though the Seres themselves give it another name. Its size is twice that of the largest beetle, but in other respects it is like the spiders that spin under trees, and furthermore it has, like the spider, eight feet. These creatures are reared by the Seres, who build them houses adapted for winter and for summer. The product of the creatures, a clue of fine thread, is found rolled round their feet. They keep them for four years, feeding them on millet, but in the fifth year, knowing that they have no longer to live, they give them green reed to eat. This of all foods the creature likes best; so it stuffs itself with the reed till it bursts with surfeit, and after it has thus died they find inside it the greater part of the thread. Seria is known to be an island lying in a recess of the Red Sea. But I have heard that it is not the Red Sea, but a river called Ser, that makes this island, just as in Egypt the Delta is surrounded by the Nile and by no sea. Such another island is Seria said to be. These Seres themselves are of Aethiopian race, as are the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands, Abasa and Sacaea. Some say, however, that they are not Aethiopians but a mongrel race of Scythians and Indians.

Lanifique

Lanifique. Wooll-breeding.

Seres

Voiez Pline, l. 6 chap 17 & son abbréviateur Solin, chap. 53.

lanific

Urquhart translates lanificques as “lunific,” which Ozell corrects to “lanific.”

Seres

Anciens peuples de l’Asie Orientale, qui poirroient bien être les Chinois. Leur pays produisoit beaucoup de soye.

arbres lanificque des seres

[Addendum to Le Duchat] — Anciens peuples de l’Asie orientale, qui pourroient bien être les Chinois. Leur pays produisoit beaucoup de soie.

arbres lanificques

Qui produisent de la laine.

les arbres lanificques des Seres

Sères, peuple de la Sérique, contrée sise au nord de l’Inde (Thibet? et régions voisines) dont parle Pline: «Seres, lanicio silvarum nobiles. perfusam aqua depectentes frondium canitiem: unde geminus feminis nostris labor redordiendi fila, rursumque texendi.» (VI, 20.) Pline cite ailleurs «Langieras Serum.» (XII, 8.) «Velleraque ut foliis depectant folia Seres», dit aussi Virgile, Géorg., l. II, v. 121.
Les arbres des forêts à laine de Sères — si arbre il y a — étaient sans doute de cotonniers. Cependant Gossellin a prétendu que cette laine si renommée était tiré des chèvres de Thibet. D’autres enfin estiment qu’il s’agit de la soie, produit du Bombyx du mûrier, dont on ne connut que plus tard la véritable origine. (Paul Delaunay)

Tylos

Tylos, île d’Arabie, dont parle Théophraste (H.P., l. IV, ch 9). — «Tylos insula in eodem sinu [Persico] est… ejusdem insulæ excelsiore suggestu lanigeræ arbores alio modo quam Serum… Ferunt cotonei mali amplitudine cucurbitas, quæ maturitate ruptæ ostendunt laanuginis pilas ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt. Arbores vocant gossympinos.» (Pline, XII, 21.) Lémery a cru retrouver dans le Gossampinus Plinii, le Fromager (Bombax ceyba, L.). Mais la brièveté des fibres du duvet de son fruit (Kapok) l’a rendu (sauf depuis ces derniers temps) impropre à tout usage textile. Mieux vaunt y voir un cotonnier soit Gossypium arboreum, L., avec Fée, soit plutôt, avec de Candolle, G. herbaceum, L. (Paul Delaunay)

arbres lanificques, gossampines, cynes, les vignes de Malthe

Il s’agit de la soie et du coton (Pline, XII, 21 et 22). Les gossampines (gossypion) sont assimilées au lin par Pline, XIX, 2. Le coton de Malthe était très réputé dans l’Antiquité, d’où la « Linigera Melite » de Scyllius, cité par Textor, Officina, lxxvi v. Cf Polydore Vergile, De Inventoribus rerum, III,vi ; Servius, Comment. in Georg., II, 121 (voir plus bas, LII, 146, note).

Sères

Peuple de la Sérique, au nord de l’Inde; les arbres à laine sont vraisemblablement des cotonniers.

Seres

Seres [Latin Seres whence sericum silk]

The name of a people anciently inhabiting some part of Eastern Asia (prob. China), whose country was believed to be the original home of silk. Hence, the Seres wool, silk.

lanific

lanific, rare. [adaptation of Latin la¯nific-us, formed on la¯na wool + -ficus making]

Wool-bearing. Busied in spinning wool.

Notes

cannabis

Cannabis sativa
Zamer Hanff

pantagruelion masle et femelle

Rabelais commet ici une confusion grave : le Cannabis sativa est une plante dioïque, à pieds mâle et femelles distincts ; le fruit, fécondé par le pollen des fleures mâles, ne peut éviedmment naître que du pied femelle. Mais l’erreur popilaire, partagée par Gesner, Fuchs, Dalechamps, Dodoens, Lonicer, considérait comme mâle la plante porte-graine, plus luxuriante ; comme femelle la plante plus grêle à fleurs pistillées, non suivies de fruits, et qui dépérit la première. (Paul Delaunay)

mercury [male and female]

[Regarding the former designation of male and female plants by their robustness and not their seed production]

The euphorbiaceous plant Mercurialis annua. Also baron’s, boy’s, French, garden, girl’s, maiden mercury. According to Britten and Holland, the baron’s or boy’s is the female and the girl’s the male mercury.