Gargantua And Pantagruel

At the grand feast, Gargantua craves salad. While picking lettuce, he accidentally also grabs six pilgrims from Lerne hiding in the greenery. Gargantua almost eats the pilgrims in his salad before they grab onto his teeth to avoid being swallowed. Thinking something is stuck between his teeth, Gargantua picks them out with a toothpick and throws them away. He urinates, still unable to spot the pilgrims, and the copious stream carries the pilgrims away.

Friar Jean is invited to supper and welcomed warmly for his defense of the abbey. The chatty monk jokes around, indulging in a bawdy explanation about why “a damsel’s thighs are always cool” (326): because they are surrounded by water (urine), topped by a dark place (genitalia), and fanned by wind blowing in through the chemise and skirts.

Impressed by Jean’s wisdom, Eudemon wonders why men dislike monks. Gargantua replies it is because monks are lazy and corrupt, but Jean reminds them that he is “never idle” (330). On being asked why some men—like him—have large noses, Jean answers his nose had more room to grow when he was a baby as it was buried in his wet-nurse’s deep cleavage.