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Glorious Nonsense
For those of you wondering, "Jabberwocky" was from Lewis
Carroll's 1872 story, Through the Looking Glass and What
Alice Found There.
Below is the poem for those of you whom suffer from that
incurable curiosity bug :-) It's utter nonsense, but isn't
that the best kind?
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Some Translations ...
| Word |
Carroll's Explanation |
Humpty Dumpty's Explanation |
| brillig |
Bryllyg (derived from the
verb to bryl or broil). The time of
broiling dinner, i.e., the close of the afternoon. |
Four o'clock in the
afternoon -- the time when you begin broiling things for
dinner. |
| slithy |
Slythy (compounded of
slimy and lithe). Smooth and active. |
Lithe and slimy. Lithe is
the same as 'active.' ... It's like a portmanteau -- there
are two meanings packed up into one word. |
| tove |
Tove, a species of badger.
They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns
like a stag; lived chiefly on cheese. "Toves" should be
pronounced to rhyme with "groves". |
Something like badgers --
they're something like lizards -- and they are something
like corkscrews. ... They make their nests under sundials --
also they live on cheese. |
| gyre |
Gyre, verb (derived from
gyaour or giaour, 'a dog'). To scratch
like a dog. |
To go round and round like
a gyroscope. |
| gimble |
Gymble (whence gimblet).
To screw out holes in anything. |
To make holes like a
gimlet. |
| wabe |
Wabe (derived from the
verb to swab or soak). The side of a hill
(from its being soaked by the rain.) |
The grass plot round a
sundial ... because it goes a long way before it, and a long
way behind it ... and a long way beyond it on each side.
(Humpty Dumpty's explanation was made with some "insights"
from Alice.) |
| mimsy |
Mimsy (whence
mimserable and miserable.) Unhappy. |
Flimsy and miserable. |
| borogoves |
Borogove. An extinct kind
of parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made
their nests under sundails; lived on veal.
The first 'o' in 'borogoves' is
pronounced like the 'o' in 'worry'. The word is commonly
mispronounced as "borogroves" ... and this misspelling even
appears in some American editions of the book. |
A thin shabby-looking bird
with its feathers sticking out all round -- something like a
live mop. |
| mome |
|
I'm not certain about
mome. I think it's short for 'from home' -- meaning
that they'd lost their way. |
| raths |
|
A rath is a sort
of green pig. |
| outgrabe |
|
Outgribing is
something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of
sneeze in the middle. |
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