To start with…

 

Good 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.

François Rebelais (1483-1553) – Gargantua
Traducció de Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux

Disponible gratis: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1200/1200.txt

~ per Gargantua a Agost 22, 2006.