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