ALPHETA'S LITERARY AGORA

Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll
from: Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
(1872)

`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, has 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.

 

"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate---"

A brief note about this poem: It would appear as though Lewis Carroll was quite familiar with the Cassia epic. There are a few lines of verse in Jabberwocky that closely echo the famous chess poem of an earlier generation. In addition, while the gender of person into whose arms the "beamish boy" is greeted following the defeat of the mythical beast remains in question, it seems most likely that they are the comforting arms of a mother's fond embrace for her heroic son.

For some excellent background on Jabberwocky and Lewis Carroll
http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html