Passons outre, je sens desia que ce livre nous eschappe, & me semble que je voy desia un frippon de proposant*, qui s’est joinct avec un aspirant à la prestrise mediante coquedindo†, & ils disent que je suis Nigromanchian‡, que je fais parler des morts.
[Béroalde de Verville], Le Moyen de parvenir. Oevure contenant la raison de tout ce qui a esté, est, & sera. Avec demonstrations certaines & necessaires, selon la rencontre des effets de VERTU. Et adviendra que ceux qui auront nez à porter Lunettes s’en serviront, ainsi qu’il est escrit au dictionnaire à dormir en toutes langues, S. Recensuit Sapiens ab A, ad Z. Imprimé cette année [1616]
* proposant — theology student preparing to become a Protestant minister or pastor.
† mediante coquedindo — by the intercession of a coq d’Inde (turkey cock), i.e., Jesuit. The dinde (Meleagris) was imported to France by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century.
‡ Nigromanchian — ‘nécromancien’, hapax legomenon; ‘negromancer’ (= ‘necromancer’), but with puns on ‘chien’, where ‘chiens’ satirically refers to the theologians engaged in a dialogue of the dead throughout the book, and possibly on ‘manche’.
Come away, I now perceive that this book is slipping out of our hands; I see a rascally Protestant with one that hopes to be a priest, mediante coquedindo; look, they put their heads together and declare that I am guilty of necromancy because I make the dead to speak.
Fantastic Tales or the Way to Attain--A Book Full of Pantagruelism Now for the First Time Done into English, trans. Arthur Machen. Privately Printed, Carbonnek, 1923
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