Page:Rabelais - Gargantua Pantagruel, translation Urquhart Motteux.djvu/63

 Rabelais to the Reader.

ood friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,

Be not offended, whilst on it you look:

Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,

For it contains no badness, nor infection:

'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth

Of any value, but in point of mirth;

Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind

Consume, I could no apter subject find;

One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;

Because to laugh is proper to the man.