How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living.
All their life was spent not in lawes, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure.
They rose out of their beds when they thought good : they did eat,
drink, labour, sleep, when they had a minde to it, and were disposed for
it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink,
nor to do any other thing ; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed,
DO WHAT THOU WILT.
Because men that are free, well-borne, well-bred, and conversant
in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spurre that prompteth
them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is
called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and
constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that
noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to vertue, to
shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so
tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long
after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.
Rabelais, Francois, The Works, 2 Vols, London: The Navarre Society, 1653, vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 57, pp. 162-163.
Rabelais, Francois, Les Oeuvres, contenant cinq livres ... de Gargantua et de son fils Pantagruel, Lyon: Jean Martin, 1558, bk. 1, La vie très horrifique du grand Gargantua, père de Pantagruel, ch. 57, p. 167.
