Chapter Pandolfe to Panurge of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Pantaloon. In the Italian comedy, Il Pantalone is a thin, emaciated old man, and the only character that acts in slippers.

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered Pantaloon.

Shakespeare: As You Like It, act ii, sc. 7 (1600)

Panthea, the heroine of Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and No King. An innocent creature enough, but only milk-and-water (1619).

Panther (The), symbol of pleasure. When Dantê began the ascent of fame, this beast met him, and tried to stop him.

Scarce the ascent
Began, when lo! a panther, nimble, light,
And covered with a speckled skin, appeared,
…and strove to check my onward going.

Dante: Hell, i. (1300).

Panther (The Spotted), the Church of England. The “milk-white hind” is the Church of Rome.

The panther, sure the noblest next the hind,
The fairest creature of the spotted kind;
Oh, could her inborn stains be washed-away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey.

Dryden: The Hind and the Panther, i. (1687).

Panthera, a hypothetical beast which lived “in the East.” Reynard affirmed that he sent her majesty, the lioness, a comb made of panthera bone, “more lustrous than the rainbow, more odoriferous than any perfume, a charm against every ill, and a universal panacea.”—Reynard the Fox (1498). (See Panaceas, p. 799.)

Panthino, servant of Anthonio (the father of Protheus, one of the two heroes of the play).—Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594).

Panton, a celebrated punster in the reign of Charles II.

And Panton waging harmless war with words.

Dryden: MacFlecknoe (1682).

Pantschatantra, a collection of Sanskrit fables.

Panurge, a young man, handsome and of good stature, but in very ragged apparel when Pantagruel first met him on the road leading from Charenton Bridge. Pantagruel, pleased with his person and moved with pity at his distress, accosted him, when Panurge replied, first in German, then in Arabic, then in Italian, then in Biscayan, then in Bas-Breton, then in Low Dutch, then in Spanish. Finding that Pantagruel knew none of these languages, Panurge tried Danish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, with no better success. “Friend,” said the prince, “can you speak French?” “Right well,” answered Panurge, “for I was born in Touraine, the garden of France.” Pantagruel then asked him if he would join his suite, which Panurge most gladly consented to do, and became the fast friend of Pantagruel. His great forte was practical jokes. Rabelais describes him as of middle stature, with an aquiline nose, very handsome, and always moneyless. Pantagruel made him governor of Salmygondin.—Rabelais: Pentagruel, iii, 2 (1545).

Panurge throughout is the panourgia (“the wisdom”), i.e. the cunning of the human animal—the understanding, as the faculty of means to purposes without ultimate ends, in the most comprehensive sense, and including art, sensuous fancy, and all the passions of the understanding.—Coleridge.