Note 22 — Chapter I · MARRIAGE
George Herbert Ely translation
[Tiraqueau was the learned and genial seneschal of Fontenoy who released Rabelais from the tender mercies of the Franciscans, for which kindness he was eulogised in Pantagruel. He had a large family, wrote many books, and was a water drinker; whence an anonymous epigram which, roughly rendered in English, reads:
Tiraqueau, fruitful as the vine, Got thirty sons, but drank no wine; Not less prolific with the pen, Produced as many books as men. And had not water sapped his strength, So strenuous a man at length Had filled this world of ours—who knows?— With books and little Tiraqueaux.]