Par ma figue

Par ma foi !

Figgins

Fr. Figue, for foi.

Par ma figue

Par ma foi! Ce juron, qui se rencontre chez Des Périers, était usité en Berry, dans le Bas-Maine et en Languedoc. (Sainéan, t. II, p. 334)

Notes

The Labyrinths, turrets, sundry fashions of burials

Book 3, Chapter 8: The Romans, because the dead corps, that died in battel, were after their burial digged out of the ground, instituted the manner of burning the carcases of men departed, which Rite was executed on Sylla, chief of all the house and kindred of the Cornelians, which feared lest he should be served as he had used Marius.

brusler les corps mors de leurs parens et seigneurs

D’après César, De bello gallico, VI, 19. Rabelais a déjà fait allusion à ce passage, ch. III., l. 14.

brusler les corps

Rabelais va traiter de la crémation. On admettait au XVIe siècle que cet usage remontait à Scylla (P. Vergile, De Inventous rerum, III, x). Pour les Druids, cf. plus bas, III, 17.

faisoient brusler

César, De bello gallico, VI, xix; voir III, p. 361.

cremation

negatur cremari posse in iis qui cardiaco morbo obierint, negatur et veneno interemptis; certe exstat oratio Vitelli qua Gnaeum Pisonem eius sceleris coarguit hoc usus argumento, palamque testatus non potuisse ob venenum cor Germanici Caesaris cremari. contra genere morbi defensus est Piso.

It is stated that at the cremation of persons who have died of heart disease the heart cannot be burnt, and the same is said of persons that have been killed by poison; undoubtedly there is extant a speech of Vitellius that employs this argument to prove Gnaeus Piso guilty of poisoning,b and explicitly uses the evidence that it had been impossible to cremate the heart of Germanicus Caesar on account of poison. In reply Piso’s defence was based on the nature of the disease.

Notes

empereurs

Au sens du latin imperatores, commandants en chef. D’après Pline, VII, 54, l’usage de la crémation daterait de l’époque de Sylla.

crémation

Ipsum cremare apud Romanos non fuit veteris instituti; terra condebantur. at postquam longinquis bellis obrutos erui eognovere, tunc institutum. et tamen multae familiae priscos servavere ritus, sicut in Cornelia nemo ante Sullam dictatorem traditur crematus, idque voluisse veritum talionem eruto C. Mari cadavere. [sepultus vero intellegitur quoquo modo conditus, humatus vero humo contectus.] [Secl. Mayhoff]

Cremation was not actually an old practice at Rome: the dead used to be buried. But cremation was instituted after it became known that the bodies of those fallen in wars abroad were dug up again. All the same many families kept on the old ritual, for instance it is recorded that nobody in the family of the Cornelii was cremated before Sulla the dictator, and that he had desired it because he was afraid of reprisals for having dug up the corpse of Gaius Marius. [But burial is understood to denote any mode of disposal of a corpse, but interment means covering up with earth.]

Notes

Caesar

Vers 44 av. JC
Marbre blanc

Caesar

Bust of Gaius Julius Caesar in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples

Caesar

[Article mentions Sulla, Marius, and Caesar] Gaius Julius Caesar (100 – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general, statesman, Consul, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative ruling class within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar’s victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome’s territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.