Latest / Classic Adventure Books - Daily / 32 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

Transcript

32 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter five, the author, at his master's command, informs him
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of the state of England, the causes of war among
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the princes of Europe. The author begins to explain the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: English Constitution. The reader may please to observe that the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: following extract of many conversations I had with my master
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: contains a summary of the most material points which were
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: discoursed at several times for above two years, his honor,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: often desiring fuller satisfaction, as I farther improved in the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whuinnham tongue I laid before him as well as I could.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: The whole state of Europe I discoursed, of trade and manufacturers,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of arts and sciences. And the answers I gave to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: all the questions he made as they arose upon several
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: subjects were a fund of conversation not to be exhausted.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: But I shall here only set down the substance of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: what passed between us concerned my own country, reducing it
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in order as well as I can, without any regard
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to time or other circumstances. While I strictly adhere to truth,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: my only concern is that I shall hardly be able
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to do justice to my master's arguments and expressions, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: must needs suffer by my want of capacity, as well
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: as by a translation into our barbarous English. In obedience
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: therefore to his Honor's commands, I related to in the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: revolution under the Prince of Orange, the long war with France,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: entered into by the said Prince and renewed by his successor,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the present Queen, wherein the greatest powers of Christiandom were engaged,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and which still continued. I computed, at his request that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: about a million yard whose might have been killed in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the whole progress of it, and perhaps a hundred or
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: more cities taken, and five times as many ships burnt
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: or sunk. He asked me what were the usual causes
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: or motives that made one country go to war with another?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I answered they were innumerable, but I should only mention
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a few of the chief Sometimes the ambition of princes
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: who never think they have land or people enough to govern.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Sometimes a corruption of ministers who engage their master in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a war in order to stifle or divert the clamor
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: has cost many millions of lives. For instance, whether flesh
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: be bread, or bread be flesh, Whether the jews of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a certain berry be blood or wine, whether whistling be
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a vice or a virtue, Whether it be better to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: kiss a post or throw it into the fire. What
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: is the best color for a coat, whether black, white, red,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: or gray? And whether it should be long or short,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: narrow or wide, dirty or clean? With many more. Neither
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: are any war so furious and bloody, or of so
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: long a continuance, as are those occasioned by difference in opinion,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: especially if it be in things indifferent. Sometimes the quarrel
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: between two princes is to decide which of them shall
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: dispossess a third of his dominions, where neither of them
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: pretend to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrels with another
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbors
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: want the things which we have, or have the things
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: which we want, and we both fight till they take
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hours or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: cause of war to invade a country after the people
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence or embroiled
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a war against our nearest, ally when one of his
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that should render our dominions round and complete. If a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: prince end's forces into a nation, whether people are poor
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: death and make slaves of the rest, in order to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: civilize and reduce them from their barbarious ways of living.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It is very kingly honorable and frequent practice when one
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: prince desires the assistance of another to secure him against
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: an invasion, that the assistant, when he is driven out
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the invader should seize on the dominions himself and kill,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in prison, or banish the prince he came to relieve.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Alliance by blood or marriage is a frequent cause of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: war between princes and the nearer. The kindred is, the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: greater their disposition to quarrel. Poor nations are hungry, and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: rich nations are proud, and pride and hunger will ever
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: be at variance. For these reasons, the trade of a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: soldier is held to the most honorable of all others,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because a soldier is a yahoo hired to kill in
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: cold blood as many of his own species, who have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: never offended him, as possibly he can. There is likewise
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: make war by themselves, who hire out their troops to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: richer nations for so much a day to each man,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of which they keep three fourths to themselves, and it
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: is the best part of their maintenance. Such are those
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in many northern parts of Europe. What you have told me,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: said my master, upon the subject of war, does indeed
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: discover most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to. However,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it is happy that the shame is greater than the danger,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and that nature has left you utterly incapable of doing
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: much mischief. For your mouth lying flat with your faces,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unless
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: by consent. Then, as to the claws upon your feet
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: before and behind, they are so short and tender that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: one of our yahoos would drive a dozen of yours
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: before him. And therefore, in recounting the numbers of those
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: who have been killed in battle, I cannot but think
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you have said the thing which is not. I could
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: not forbear, shaking my head and smiling a little at
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: his ignorance, and being no stranger to the art of war,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: killed on each side, dying, groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: trampling to death underhorle his feet, flight, pursuit, victory, fields
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: strewed with carcasses left for food to dogs and wolves
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and birds of prey, plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning and destroying,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And to set forth the valor of my own dear countrymen.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I assured him that I had seen them blown up
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: many in a ship, and beheld the dead bodies dropped
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: down in pieces from the clouds to the great diversion
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: of the spectators. I was going on to more particulars
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: when my master commanded me silence. He said, whoever understood
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the nature of Yahoos might easily believe it possible for
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: so vile an animal to be capable of every action
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I had named, if their strength and cunning equal to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: their malice. But as my discourse had increased his abhorrence
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of the whole species, he found it gave him a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: disturbance in his mind to which he was wholly a
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: stranger before. He thought his ears, being used to such
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: abominable words, might by degrees admit them with less detestation.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: That although he hated the Yahoos of this country, yet
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: he no more blamed them for their odious qualities than
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: he did a guneur, a bird of prey for its cruelty,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: or a sharp stone cutting his hoof. But when a
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: he dreaded lest the corruption of that facility might be
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore confidant that instead
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of reason, we were only possessed of some quality fitted
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to increase on natural vices, as the reflection from a
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: not only larger but more distorted. He added that he
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: had heard too much upon the subject of war, both
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: in this and some former discourses. There was another point
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: which a little perplexed him. At present I had informed
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: him that some of our crew left their country on
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: account of being ruined by law, that I had already
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: explained the meaning of the word. But he was at
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a loss how it should come to pass that the law,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: which was intended for every man's preservation, should be any
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: man's ruin. Therefore, he desired to be further satisfied what
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I meant by law and the dispenses thereof, according to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the present practice of my own country, because he thought
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: nature and reason were sufficient guide for a reasonable animal,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: as we pretended to be, in showing us what he
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: ought to do and what to avoid. I assured his
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: honor that the law was a science in which I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: had not much conversed, further than by apploying advocates in
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: vain upon some injustices that had been done me. However,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I would give him all the satisfaction I was able.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I said, there was a society of men among us,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: bred up from their youth in the art of proving
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and black as white. According as they are paid to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: this society, all the rest of the people are slaves.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: For example, if my neighbor has a mind to my cow,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: have my cow from me. I must then hire another
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to defend my right, it being against all rules of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: law that any man should be allowed to speak for himself.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Now in this case, I, who am the right owner,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: lie under two great disadvantages. First, my lawyer, being practiced
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: of his element when he would be an advocate for justice,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: which is an unnatural office. He always attempts with great awkwardness,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: if not with ill will. The second disadvantage is that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: will be reprimanded by the judges and abhorred by his
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: brethren as one that would lessen the practice of the law.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: The first is to gain my adversary's lawyer with a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that he hath justice on his side. The second ways
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: for my lawyer to make my case appear as unjust
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: as he can by allowing the cow to belong to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: my adversary. And this, if it be skillfully done, will
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: certainly bespeak the favor of the bench. Now, your honor
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is to know that these judges are persons appointed to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: decide or controversies of property, as well as for the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury, and oppression that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I have known some of them refuse a large bribe
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: faculty by doing anything unbecoming their nature or their office.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: been done before may legally be done again, and therefore
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: they take special care to record all the decisions formerly
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: under the name of precedence, they produce as authorities to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of directing accordingly. In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the merits of the cause, but allowed violent and tedious
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: For instance, in the case already mentioned, they never desire
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to know what claim or title my adversary has to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: my cow, but whether the said cow are red or black,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: her horns long or short, whether the field I graze
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: her in be round or square, whether she was milked
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: at home or abroad, what diseases she is subject to,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and the like after which they consult precedents, adjoin the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty or
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: thirty years come to an issue. It is likewise to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: be observed that this society has a peculiar cant and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: jargon of their own that no other mortal can understand,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and wherein all their laws are written, which they take
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: special care to multiply. Whereby they have wholly confounded the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: very essence of truth and falsehood of right and wrong,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: so that it will take thirty years to decide whether
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the field left me by my ancestors for six generations
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: belongs to me or to a stranger three hundred miles off.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: The method is much more short and commendable. The judge
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: first ends to sound the disposition of those in power,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: after which he can easily hang or say the criminal,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: strictly preserving all due forms of law. Here my Master,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in deposing, said, it was a pity that creatures endowed
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: with such prodigious abilities of mind, as these lawyers, by
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the description I gave of them, must certainly be, were
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: not rather encouraged to be instructures of others in wisdom
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and knowledge. In answer to which I assured his Honor
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that in all points out of their own trade, they
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: were usually the most ignorant and stupid generation among us,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the most despicable in common conversation, avowed enemies to all
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert to the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: general reason of mankind in every other subject of discourse,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: as in that of their own profession. Earned a Part four,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Chapter five