ABSTRACT
Entire episodes in Pantagruel derive their fun from interlocked texts of Scripture. Rabelais placed his qualification on the title-page of his Tiers Livre de Pantagruel: 'Master Fran. Bodily gestures and bodily functions are signs. Some signs, some gestures, have meanings which are 'natural' and so are understood from culture to culture. From Plato onwards many held that words are signs which have, or may have, 'true' meanings. The senses which they have may be not merely arbitrary but correspond in reality. It is agreed to use gestures and signs other than words. When Christ was asked for a sign - a miracle to prove his credentials - he condemned the 'adulterous generation' who sought signs, contrasting it with the Queen of Sheba who came from afar to learn from Solomon.
