Note 178 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

“Rabelais being very sick, Cardinal du Bellay sent his page to him to have an account of his condition; his answer was, ‘Tell my Lord in what circumstances thou findest me; I am going to leap into the dark. He is up in the cockloft, bid him keep where he is. As for thee, thou’lt always be a fool: let down the curtain, the farce is done.’” ... An author (Thov. His. de Jean Clopinel) who styles Rabelais a man of excellent learning, writes, that he being importuned by some to sign a will whereby they had made him bestow on them legacies that exceeded his ability, he, to be no more disturbed, complied at last with their desires; but when they came to ask him where they should find a fund answerable to what he gave; ‘as for that,’ replied he, ‘you must do like the spaniel, look about and search’; then, adds that author, having said, ‘Draw the curtain, the farce is over,’ he died. Likewise a monk (P. de St. Romuald, Rel. Feuillant) not only tells us that he ended his life with that jest, but that he left a paper sealed up wherein were found three articles as his last will: ‘I owe much, I have nothing, I give the rest to the poor.’ The last story or that before it must undoubtedly be false; and perhaps both are so as well as the message by the page; though Fregius (Comment. in Orat. Cic., tom. I) relates also that Rabelais said when he was dying, ‘Draw the curtain,’ etc. But if he said so, many great men have said much the same. Thus Augustus (Nunquid vitæ mimum commode peregisset) near his death, asked his friends whether he had not very well acted the farce of life? And Demonax, one of the best philosophers, when he saw that he could not, by reason of his great age, live any longer, without being a burden to others, as well as to himself, said to those who were near him what the herald used to say when the public games were ended, ‘You may withdraw, the show is over,’ and refusing to eat, kept his usual gaiety to the last, and set himself at ease. (Lucian)—From Peter Motteux’s Life of Rabelais prefaced to the English translation made by himself and Sir Thomas Urquhart.