The Great Gate of Theleme

The fever is in my eyes this evening -- fecund burning, staring, staring. The felines are fed, Fred is in deep communion with his Important Work, tucked safely away in his office, in the big black chair. When I am not looking, he spins round and round in that big black chair, and goes woooooooo!

You can't fool me.

When febrile, I do the darnedest things. I put dirty clothes in the dryer, thereby cutting my workload in half. I sometimes throw away our flatware. That kind of thing. Oh, and I cry, but the tears are meaningless. Really!

The life of a feverish brain is fascinating. For example, look at what I put by the bed to read this afternoon: Thurber! Rabelais! It is my habit to read several works at once. The principle that guides my choices is the simple requirement that there be dialogue, a measure of synthesis that I hope results in something new (small nod -- and a wink -- to crazy Pound) between my delicate pink ears.

Rabelais' bawdy Gargantua and Pantagruel amuse me at a good quivering belly level, much as James Thurber can send me into ladylike throes of snorting, hooting, and general hilarity.

I am that rare scholar who juxtaposes at will, at whim, for whimsy! Indeed, I am Treasurer of the Local Chapter of Academics for Whimsy. Through me are channeled the elegant guffaws of an early humanist benedictine monk and physician, delicately intertwined with the comic doodles of a comedian of the Common Man, subset urbane (Polite, yes. Polished? Not so much.).

A footnoted Wikipedia entry tells us that:

Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow.[1]

Now *that* is a factoid begging for a desperate graduate student from the Midwest.

(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit! Anyone! Do you not shake your head in wonder? I know I do! Why, I begin to believe we *can* do anything.)

Aw, crap, my head is still shaking.

Anyway, I defy you to make it through The Night the Bed Fell without mirth, merriment, and milk up the nose or to refrain from intoning "choo choo" to Bolenciecwcz, as he struggles with his modes of transportation. It's a universe of self-effacing gentle men chez Thurber. We all know a Walter Mitty. Cough. Sniff. (Okay, so I am sometimes myself a vaguely heroic, altogether inscrutable, brandy-downing, suicidal puppy-biscuit buyer.)

What inspired me to place the sketch, the flip of a wrist short stories alongside something so... well, gargantuan as Gargantua and Pantagruel?

Brow furrowed, I carry my finger down the chapter listings, see How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of his hair, laugh out loud, and go on, sick hot brain, sick hot eyes, trying to remember, hoping that dandruff humor is not going to be my answer. How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece. Ar! Still, no...

Ahhh. Here it is, Chapter 54. That little bit of nothing that I'd like at the virtual entrance to this blog, on the tombstone I will have, on a refrigerator magnet, as something slightly oily in the water.

The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme [Abbey]:

Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,

Externally devoted apes, base snites,

Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,

Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:

Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts,

Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants,

Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,

Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,

Fomenters of divisions and debates,

Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

Your filthy trumperies

Stuffed with pernicious lies

(Not worth a bubble),

Would do but trouble

Our earthly paradise,

Your filthy trumperies.

Here enter not attorneys, barristers,

Nor bridle-champing law-practitioners:

Clerks, commissaries, scribes, nor pharisees,

Wilful disturbers of the people’s ease:

Judges, destroyers, with an unjust breath,

Of honest men, like dogs, even unto death.

Your salary is at the gibbet-foot:

Go drink there! for we do not here fly out

On those excessive courses, which may draw

A waiting on your courts by suits in law.

Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling

Hence are exiled, and jangling.

Here we are veryFrolic and merry,

And free from all entangling,

Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling.

Here enter not base pinching usurers,

Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers,

Gold-graspers, coin-gripers, gulpers of mists,

Niggish deformed sots, who, though your chests

Vast sums of money should to you afford,

Would ne’ertheless add more unto that hoard,

And yet not be content,—you clunchfist dastards,

Insatiable fiends, and Pluto’s bastards,

Greedy devourers, chichy sneakbill rogues,

Hell-mastiffs gnaw your bones, you ravenous dogs.

You beastly-looking fellows,

Reason doth plainly tell us

That we should not

To you allot

Room here, but at the gallows,

You beastly-looking fellows.

Here enter not fond makers of demurs

In love adventures, peevish, jealous curs,

Sad pensive dotards, raisers of garboils,

Hags, goblins, ghosts, firebrands of household broils,

Nor drunkards, liars, cowards, cheaters, clowns,

Thieves, cannibals, faces o’ercast with frowns,

Nor lazy slugs, envious, covetous,

Nor blockish, cruel, nor too credulous,

—Here mangy, pocky folks shall have no place,

No ugly lusks, nor persons of disgrace.

Grace, honour, praise, delight,

Here sojourn day and night.

Sound bodies lined

With a good mind,

Do here pursue with might

Grace, honour, praise, delight.

Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,

All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.

This is the glorious place, which bravely shall

Afford wherewith to entertain you all.

Were you a thousand, here you shall not want

For anything; for what you’ll ask we’ll grant.

Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,

Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,

Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,

And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.

Blades of heroic breasts

Shall taste here of the feasts,

Both privily

And civilly

Of the celestial guests,

Blades of heroic breasts.

Here enter you, pure, honest, faithful, true

Expounders of the Scriptures old and new.

Whose glosses do not blind our reason, but

Make it to see the clearer, and who shut

Its passages from hatred, avarice,

Pride, factions, covenants, and all sort of vice.

Come, settle here a charitable faith,

Which neighbourly affection nourisheth.

And whose light chaseth all corrupters hence,

Of the blest word, from the aforesaid sense.

The holy sacred Word,

May it always afford

T’ us all in common,

Both man and woman,

A spiritual shield and sword,

The holy sacred Word.

Here enter you all ladies of high birth,

Delicious, stately, charming, full of mirth,

Ingenious, lovely, miniard, proper, fair,

Magnetic, graceful, splendid, pleasant, rare,

Obliging, sprightly, virtuous, young, solacious,

Kind, neat, quick, feat, bright, compt, ripe, choice, dear, precious.

Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete,

Wise, personable, ravishing, and sweet,

Come joys enjoy.

The Lord celestial

Hath given enough wherewith to please us all.

Gold give us,

God forgive us,

And from all woes relieve us;

That we the treasure

May reap of pleasure,

And shun whate’er is grievous,

Gold give us,

God forgive us.

Over on Amazon.com, I come across Nelson Richardson's Listmania! List, entitled "A Shelf from Theleme Abbey." Guess what Nelson Richardson says of his Listmania! List? He says:

"Books have lineages. I like to read ancestors and descendants, slowly and repeatedly, going up and down the chain through time."

There's always already someone wonderful out there, ready to save my butt.

Thurber and Rabelais: Separated at Birth?

Carry me back to old Valhalla...