ABSTRACT
The episode of Signor Belly, Messere Gaster, shows the force of introducing Christian authority into myth. Rabelais sees fear of hunger as the driving force of all natural human endeavour in this sublunary world. The theme is an ancient one, strongly supported by a clutch of Erasmian adages. Messere Gaster himself dwells in the high, fertile uplands which, according to a famous myth of Hesiod's, is reached only after a long, tough, rugged climb. Human endeavour in all fields is humorously passed in review to the refrain of Tout pour la tripe! ('All for the innards!'). In a culture which knew hunger and famine the seriousness behind the laughter is never completely absent. Messere Gaster serves another purpose. By him reminded of the deadly sin of gluttony. Many thought that monks, however divided by rivalry and by distinctive and varied vestments, all wallowed in it.
