Latest / Classic Adventure Books Collection / 34 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

Transcript

34 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books Collection

• 0:00
  Chapter seven, The Author's great love of his native country, his master's observations
• 0:07
  upon the constitution and administration of England, as described by the author, with
• 0:13
  parallel cases and comparisons his Master's observations upon human nature. The reader may be
• 0:21
  disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to give so free a representation
• 0:25
  of my own species among a race of mortals who are already too apt to
• 0:30
  conceive the vilest opinion of humankind from that entire congruity between me and they Yahoo's.
• 0:38
  But I must freely confess that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds placed
• 0:44
  an opposite view to human corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged
• 0:49
  my understanding that I began to view the actions and passions of man in a
• 0:53
  very different light, and to think the honor of my own kind not worth
• 0:57
  managing, which, besides, it was impossible for me to do before a
• 1:03
  person of so acute judgment as my master, who daily convinced me of a
• 1:07
  thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before, and
• 1:12
  which with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewise
• 1:19
  learned from his example, and at a detestation of all falsehood or disguise,
• 1:26
  and truth appeared so amiable to me that I determined upon sacrificing everything to it.
• 1:33
  Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there was
• 1:37
  yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation of things.
• 1:44
  I had not yet been a year in this country before I contracted such
• 1:48
  a love and veneration for the inhabitants that I entered on a firm resolution never
• 1:53
  to return to human kind, but to pass the rest of my life among
• 1:57
  these admirable Whinnhams, in the contemplation and practice of every virtue. Where I
• 2:04
  could have no example or incitement to vice, but it was decreed by fortune,
• 2:10
  my perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall to my
• 2:15
  share. However, it is now some comfort to reflect that in what I
• 2:23
  said to my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before
• 2:28
  so strict an examiner, and upon every article gave as favorable a turn as
• 2:32
  the matter would bear. For indeed, who is there alive that will not
• 2:38
  be swayed by his bias? And partiality to the place of his birth.
• 2:44
  I have related the substance of several conversations I had with my master during the
• 2:49
  greatest part of the time I had the honor to be in his service,
• 2:53
  but have indeed, for brevity's sake, I made it much more than is
• 2:57
  here set down. When I had answered all his questions and his curiosity seemed
• 3:02
  to be fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early and commanded me
• 3:07
  to sit down at some distance, an honor which he had never before conferred
• 3:13
  upon me. He said he had been very seriously considering my whole story,
• 3:19
  as far as it related both to myself and my country. That he looked
• 3:23
  upon us as a sort of animals to whose share, by what accident he
• 3:29
  could not conjecture some small pittance of reason had fallen whereof we made no other
• 3:35
  use than by its assistance to aggravate our natural corruptions and to acquire new ones
• 3:40
  which nature had not given us. That we disarmed ourselves of the few ability
• 3:46
  she had bestowed, had been very successful in multiplying our original wants, and
• 3:52
  seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavors to supply them. By our
• 3:55
  own inventions, that as to mysel, it was manifest I had neither the
• 4:01
  strength nor agility of a common Yahoo. That I walked infirmly on my hinder
• 4:06
  feet, had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or
• 4:12
  defense, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as
• 4:16
  a shelter from the sun and the weather. Lastly, that I could neither
• 4:21
  run with speed nor climb trees like my brethren, as he called them,
• 4:27
  the Yahoos in his country, that tur institutions of government and law were plainly
• 4:32
  owing to our gross defects in reason and by consequence, in virtue. Because
• 4:39
  reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature, which was therefore a character,
• 4:44
  we had no pretense to challenge, even from the account I had given
• 4:47
  of my own people, although he manifestly perceived that in order to favor them,
• 4:54
  I had concealed many particulars, and often said the thing which was not.
• 5:00
  He was the more confirmed in this opinion, because he observed that,
• 5:04
  as I agreed in every feature of my body with other Yahoos, except where
• 5:10
  it was to my real disadvantage in point of strength, speed, and activity,
• 5:14
  the shortness of my clause, and some other particulars where nature had no
• 5:17
  part. So from the representation I had given him of our lives, our
• 5:23
  manners, and our actions, he found as near a resemblance in the disposition
• 5:27
  of our minds. He said, the Yahoos were known to hate one another
• 5:33
  more than they did any different species of animal, and the reason usually assigned
• 5:38
  was the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest,
• 5:43
  but not in themselves. He had therefore begun to think it not unwise
• 5:47
  in us to cover our bodies, and by that invention conceal many of our
• 5:53
  deformities from each other, which would else be hardly supportable. But he now
• 5:59
  found he had been mistaken, and that the dissensions of those brutes in his
• 6:03
  country were owing to the same cause with ours as I had described them.
• 6:10
  For if said he you thro are among five Yahoos as much food as would
• 6:15
  be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together
• 6:19
  by the ears, each single one impatient to have all to itself. And
• 6:25
  therefore a servant was usually employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad,
• 6:30
  and those kept at home were tied at a distance from each other. That
• 6:33
  if a cow died of age or accident before Wynham could secure it for his
• 6:39
  own Yahoos. Those in the neighborhood would come in herds to seize it,
• 6:44
  and then would ensue such a battle as I had described, with terrible wounds
• 6:47
  made by their claws on both sides, although they seldom were able to kill
• 6:53
  one another for want of such convenient instruments of death as we had invented.
• 6:59
  At other times, the like battles have been fought between the yahoos of several
• 7:02
  neighborhoods without any visible cause, those of one district watching all opportunities to surprise
• 7:11
  the next before they are prepared. But if they find their project has miscarried,
• 7:16
  they return home, and, for want of enemies, engage in what
• 7:20
  I call a civil war among themselves. That in some fields of his country
• 7:27
  there are certain shining stones of several colors, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond,
• 7:33
  and when part of these stones are fixed in the earth, as it
• 7:36
  sometimes happens, they will dig with their claws for whole days to get them
• 7:43
  out, then carry them away and hide them by heaps in their kennels,
• 7:47
  but still looking round with great caution for fear their comrades should find out their
• 7:51
  treasure. My master said he could never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite,
• 8:00
  or how these stones could be of any use to yahoo, But now
• 8:05
  he believed it might proceed from the same principle of avaris which I had ascribed
• 8:09
  to mankind, that he had, once, by way of experiment, privately
• 8:16
  removed a heap of those stones from the place where one of his yahoos had
• 8:20
  buried it. Whereupon the sordid animal, missing his treasure, by his loud,
• 8:26
  lamenting, brought the hole herd to the place. There miserably howled,
• 8:31
  then fell to biting and tearing. The rest began to pine away, would
• 8:35
  neither eat nor sleep till work till he ordered a servant privately to convey the
• 8:41
  stones into the same hole and hide them, as before, which when his
• 8:46
  yahoo had found he presently recovered his spirits and good humor, but took good
• 8:52
  care to remove them to a better hiding place, and has ever since been
• 8:56
  a very serviceable brute. My master further assured me when I also observed myself
• 9:05
  that in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent
• 9:11
  battles are fought occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighboring Yahoos. He said,
• 9:20
  it was common when two Yahoos discovered such a stone in a field and were
• 9:24
  contending which of them should be the proprietor a third would take the advantage and
• 9:30
  carry it away from both of them, which my Master would needs contend to
• 9:35
  have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law, wherein I thought it
• 9:41
  for our credit not to undeceive him, since the decision he mentioned was much
• 9:46
  more equitable than many decrees among us, because the plaintive and defendant there lost
• 9:52
  nothing besides the stone they contended for, whereas our courts of equity would never
• 9:56
  have dismissed the case whether either of the had anything left. My Master,
• 10:03
  continuing his discourse, said, there was nothing that rendered the Yahoos more odious
• 10:09
  than their undistinguishing appetite to devour everything that came in their way, whether herbs,
• 10:16
  roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all mingled together.
• 10:22
  And it was peculiar in their temper that they were fonder of what they
• 10:26
  could get by rapin or stealth at a great distance, then much better food
• 10:31
  provided for them at home, if their prey held out, they would eat
• 10:35
  till they were ready to burst, after which nature had pointed out to them
• 10:41
  a certain route that gave them a general evacuation. There was also another kind
• 10:48
  of root, very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be found,
• 10:54
  which the Yahoos sought for with much eagerness, and would suck it with great
• 10:58
  delight. It produced in them the same effects that wine has upon us.
• 11:05
  It would make them sometimes hug and sometimes tear one another. They would howl
• 11:09
  and grin, and chatter, and reel and tumble, and then fall asleep
• 11:13
  in the mud. I did, indeed observe that the Yahoos were the only
• 11:20
  animals in this country subject to any diseases, which however, were much fewer
• 11:26
  than horses have among us, and contracted not by any ill treatment they met
• 11:31
  with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute. Neither has
• 11:37
  their language any more than a general appellllation for those maladies, which is borrowed
• 11:43
  from the name of the beast and called Hunya Yahoo or Yahoo's evil, and
• 11:50
  the cure prescribed as a mixture of their own dung and urine forcibly put down
• 11:56
  the yahoo's throat. This I since often known to have been taken with success,
• 12:03
  and do here freely recommend it to my countrymen for the public good,
• 12:07
  as an admirable specific against all diseases produced by repellation. As to learning,
• 12:13
  government, arts, manufacturers, and the like, my master confessed he could
• 12:18
  find little or no resemblance between the yahoos of that country and those in ours,
• 12:24
  for he only meant to observe what parity there was in our natures.
• 12:31
  He had heard, Indeed, some curious venhems observe that in most herds there
• 12:37
  was a sort of ruling yahoo. As among us there is generally some leaping
• 12:43
  or principal stag in a park, who was always most deformed in body and
• 12:48
  mischievous in disposition than any of the rest. That This leader had usually a
• 12:54
  favorite, as like himself as he could get, whose employment was to leack
• 12:58
  his master's fee and posteriors, and drive the female yahoos to his kennel,
• 13:05
  for which he was now and then rewarded with a piece of asses flesh.
• 13:09
  This favorite is hated by the whole herd, and therefore, to protect himself,
• 13:16
  keeps always near the person of his leader. He usually continues in office
• 13:20
  till a worse can be found. But the very moment he is discarded,
• 13:26
  his successor at the head of all the yahoos in that district, young and
• 13:31
  old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their excrements
• 13:37
  upon him from head to foot. But how far this might be applicable to
• 13:41
  our courts and favorites and ministers of state, my master said I could best
• 13:46
  determine. I durst make no return to this malicious insinuation, which debased human
• 13:52
  understanding. Below the sagacity of a common hound, who has judgment enough to
• 13:58
  distinguish and follow the cry of the a blessed dog in the pack, without
• 14:01
  being ever mistaken. My master told me there were some qualities remarkable in the
• 14:09
  yahoos which he had not observed me to mention, or at least very slightly
• 14:16
  in the accounts I had given of human kind. He said, those animals,
• 14:22
  like other brutes, had their females in common. But in this they
• 14:26
  differed. That the she ya who would omit the males while she was pregnant,
• 14:31
  and that the hees would quarrel and fight with the females as fiercely as
• 14:35
  with each other, both which practices were such degrees of infamous brutality as no
• 14:41
  other sensitive creature ever arrived. At. Another thing he wondered at in the
• 14:48
  yahoo's was this strange disposition to nastiness and dirt, whereas there appears to be
• 14:54
  a natural love of cleanliness in all other animals. As to the two former
• 15:01
  accusations, I was glad to let them pass without any reply, because I
• 15:05
  had not a word to offer upon them in defense of my species, which
• 15:09
  otherwise I certainly had done for my own inclinations. But I could have easily
• 15:16
  vindicated humankind from the imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had
• 15:24
  been any swine in that country, as unluckily for me there was not,
• 15:28
  which, although it may be a sweet of quadruped than here, who cannot
• 15:33
  I humbly conceive injustice pretend to more cleanliness? And so his honor must have
• 15:41
  owned if he had seen their filthy way of feeding and their custom of wallowing
• 15:45
  and sleeping in the mud. My master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants
• 15:52
  had discovered in several Yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable. He said
• 16:00
  he would sometimes take Yahoo to retire into a corner, to lie down and
• 16:03
  howl and groan, and spurn away all that came near him. Although he
• 16:08
  were young and fat, wanted neither food nor water, nor did the servant
• 16:14
  imagine what could possibly ail him, and the only remedy they found was to
• 16:21
  set him hard to work, after which he would infallibly come to himself.
• 16:26
  To this, I was silent out of partiality to my own kind. Yet
• 16:30
  here I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen, which only seizes on
• 16:36
  the lazy, the luxurious, and the rich, who, if they were
• 16:40
  forced to undergo the same regime I would undertake for the cure. His honor
• 16:47
  had further observed that a female yahoo would often stand behind a bank or a
• 16:52
  bush to gaze on the young males passing by, and then appear and hide,
• 16:57
  using many antique gestures and grimaces, at which time it was observed that
• 17:03
  she had a most offensive smell, and when any of the males advanced,
• 17:08
  would slowly retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear,
• 17:14
  run off into some convenient place where she knew the male would follow her.
• 17:21
  At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or
• 17:25
  four of her own sex would get about her and stare and chatter and grin
• 17:30
  and smell all over, and then turn off with gestures that seemed to express
• 17:33
  contempt and disdain. Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations,
• 17:40
  which she had drawn from what he had observed himself or had been told by
• 17:44
  others. However, I could not reflect without some amazement and much sorrow,
• 17:52
  that the rudiments of looseness, coquetry, censure, and scandal should have placed
• 17:56
  by instinct in womankind. I expected every moment that my master would accuse the
• 18:03
  yahoos of those unnatural appetites in both sexes so common among us. But nature,
• 18:10
  it seems, has not been so expert a schoolmistress. And these politer
• 18:15
  pleasures are entirely the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe,
• 18:21
  and apart four Chapter seven