Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Myrmidon

Meaning: a flunky, although wiktionary takes it one further: someone "who executes orders of a superior without protest or pity".

Usefulness: 1 (Let's face it, you either are one, or you'd like some)

Logofascination: 2

In the wild: A publisher, a corporation and a reef: I think the reef has the best looking website.

Degrees: 1

Connections: n/a

Used in:  G&P, Second Book, XI: How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel without an attorney.  
"The babbling tattle and fond fibs seditiously raised between the gibblegabblers and Accursian gibberish-mongers for the rebellion of the Switzers, who had assembled themselves to the full number of the bumbees and myrmidons to go a-handsel-getting on the first day of the new year". 
The French (below) contains no myrmidons (or bumbees, for that matter) but since none of it is intended to make any sense, Sir Thomas allows himself even more poetic reach than normal. Frame says of this and succeeding chapters: "any cogency or coherence is of course strictly coincidental."

Rabelais himself: "moyennant une sedition de Ballivernes meue entre les Barragouyns et les Accoursiers pour la rebellion des Souyces, qui s'estoyent assemblez jusques au nombre de bon bies pour aller à l'aguillanneuf le premier trou de l'an que l'on."

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