Pluto, bid Rabelais welcome to thy shore,
That thou, who art the king of woe and pain,
Whose subjects never learned to laugh before,
May boast a laugher in thy grim domain.
O Pluton, Rabelais reçoy,
A fin que toy qui es le Roy
De ceux qui ne rient jamais,
Tu ais un rieur desormais.
A fin que toy qui es le Roy
De ceux qui ne rient jamais,
Tu ais un rieur desormais.
Original text (French)
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Source, in full
Epitaphe de Rabelais ('Epitaph on Rabelais'), from Passetemps, bk. 3, in Œuvres en rime (1573), ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux (Paris: A. Lemerre, 1877) vol. 4, p. 373; tr. Louisa Stuart Costello, Specimens of the Early Poetry of France (London: William Pickering, 1835) p. 234