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02 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Adventure Books Library

• Chapter two, the Emperor of Liliput, attended by several of the nobility, comes to see the author in his confinement. The Emperor's person and habits described learned men appointed to teach the author their language. He gains favor by his mild disposition. His pockets are searched, and his sword and pistols taken from him. When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a more entertaining prospect. The country around appeared like a continued garden, and the enclosed fields, which were generally forty feet square, resembled so many beds of flowers. These fields were intermingled with woods of half a stang, and the tallest trees, as I could judge, appeared to be seven feet high. I viewed the town on my left hand, which looked like the painted scene of a city in a theater. I had been for some hours extremely pressed by the necessities of nature, which was no wonder it, being almost two days since I had last disburdened myself. I was under great difficulties between urgency and shame. The best expedient I could think of was to creep into my house, which I accordingly did and shut in the gate after me. I went as far as the length of my chain would suffer, and discharge my body of that uneasy load. But this was the only time I was ever guilty of so uncleanly, an action for which I cannot but hope the candid reader will give some allowance after who is maturely and impartially considered my case and the distress I was in. From this time my constant practice was as soon as I rose to perform that business in open air at the full extent of my chain, and due care was taken every morning before company came, that the offensive matter should be carried off in wheelbarrows by two servants appointed for that purpose. I would not have dwelt so long upon a circumstance that, perhaps at first sight, may appear not very momentous if I had not thought it necessary to justify my character in point of cleanliness to the world, which I am told some of my maligners have been pleased upon this and other occasions to call into question. When this adventure was at an end, I came back out of my house, having an occasion for fresh air. The Emperor was already descended from the tower and advancing on horseback towards me, which had liked to have cost him dear. For the beast, though very well trained, yet wholly unused to such a sight, which appeared as if a mountain moved before him, reared up on his hind feet. But that Prince, who is an excellent horseman, kept his seat till his attendants ran in and held the bridle, while his majesty had time to dismount. When he alighted, he surveyed me round with great admiration, but kept beyond the length of my chain. He ordered his cooks and butlers, who were already prepared to give me victuals and drink, which they pushed forward in a sort of vehicle upon wheels till I could reach them. I took these vehicles and soon emptied them. All twenty of them were filled with meat, and ten with liqueur. Each of the former afforded me two or three good mouthfuls, And I emptied the liqueur of ten vessels, which was contained in irven vials, into one vehicle, drinking it off at a draft. And so I did with the rest. The Empress and young princes of the blood of both sexes. Attended by many ladies, sat at some distance in their chairs, but upon the accident that happened to the Emperor's horse, they alighted and came near his person, which I am now going to describe. He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an oar into the beholders. His features are strong and masculin, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his prime, being twenty eight years and three quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven, in great felicity and generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay on my side so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off. However, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description. His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asia Static and the European. But he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels and a plume on the crest. He held a sword drawn in his hand to defend himself if I should happen to break loose. It was almost three inches long. The hills and scabbard were gold and rich with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it when I stood up. The ladies and courtiers were all magnificently clad, so that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread upon the ground, embroidered with figures of gold and silver. His Imperial Majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but neither of us can understand its syllable. There were several of his priests and lawyers present, as I conjectured by their habits, who were commanded to address themselves to me, and I spoke to them in many languages, as I had the least smattering of which were high and low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingu Francars, but all to no purpose. After about two hours, the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst, and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, where one very narrowly missed my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring leaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my hands, which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forward with the buttons of their pikes into my reach. I took them in my right hand, put five of them into my coat pocket. I nursed to the sixth. I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man scrawled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my pen knife. But I soon put them out of fear for looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with. I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taken them one by one out of my pocket, and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at court. Towards night, I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time the Emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred beds of the common measure were brought in carriages and worked up in my house. A hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the breadth and length, and these were four double, which however, kept me but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor that was a smooth stone. By the same computation, they provided me with sheets, blankets, and coverlets, tolerable enough for one who had been so long inured to hardships. As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle and curious people to see me, so that the villages were almost emptied, and a great neglect of tillage and household affairs must have ensued if his Imperial Majesty had not provided by several proclamations and orders of state against this inconveniency, he directed that those who had already beheld me should return home and not presumed to come within fifty yards of my house without license from the Court, whereby the secretaries of State got considerable fees. In the meantime, the Emperor held frequent councils to debate what course should be taken with me, and I was afterwards assured by a particular friend, a person of great quality, who was as much in the secret as any, that the Court was under many difficulties concerning me. They apprehended my breaking loose, that my diet would be very expensive and might cause a famine. Sometimes they determined to starve me, or at least to shoot me in the face and head hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon dispatch me. But again they considered that the stent of so large a carcass might produce a plague in the metropolis and probably spread through the whole kingdom. In the midst of these consultations, several officers of the army went to the door of the Great Council Chamber, and two of them, being admitted, gave an account of my behavior to the six criminals above mentioned, which made so favorable an impression in the breast of His Majesty and the whole board in my behalf, that an imperial commission was issued out, obliging all the villages nine hundred yards around the city to deliver in every morning six beaves, forty sheep, and other victuals for my sustenance, together with a proportional quantity of bread and wine, and other liqueurs, for the due payment of which His Majesty gave assignments upon his treasury. For this Prince lives chiefly upon his own demensies, seldom, except upon great occasions, raised any subsidies upon his subjects, who were bound to attend him in his wars at their own expense. An establishment was also made of six hundred persons to be my domestics, who had broad wages allowed for their maintenance, and tents built for them very conveniently on each side of my door. It was likewise ordered that three hundred tailors should make me a suit of clothes after the fashion of the country, that six of His Majesty's greatest scholars should be employed to instruct me in their language. And lastly, that the Emperor's horses and those of the nobility and troops of the guards should be frequently exercised, in my sight to accustom themselves to me. All these orders were duly put in execution, and in about three weeks I made a great progress in learning their language, during which time the Emperor frequently honored me with his visits and was pleased to assist my masters in teaching me. We began already to converse together in some sort, and the first words I learnt were to express my desire that he would please give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees. His answer, as I could comprehend, it, was that this must be the work of time, not to be thought on without the advice of his counsel. And at first I must lumas kelmyn pessot desmarleon eposso that is, swear a piece with him and his kingdom. However, that I should be used with all kindness, and he advised me to acquire, by my patience and discreet behavior the good opinion of himself and his subjects he desired. I would not take it ill if he gave orders to certain proper officers to search me, for probably I might carry about me several weapons, which must needs be dangerous things. If they answered the bulk of so prodigious a person, I said, his majesty should be satisfied, for I was ready to strip myself, and turned my pockets before him. This I delivered, part in words and part in signs. He replied that by the laws of the kingdom, I must be searched by two of his officers. That he knew this could not be done without my consent and assistance, and he had so good an opinion of my generosity and justice as to trust their persons in my hands, that whatever they took from me should be returned when I left the country, or paid were at the rate which I would set upon them. I took up the two officers in my hands, put them first in my coat pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, except my two fobs and another secret pocket, which I had no mind should be searched, wherein I had some little necessities that it were of no consequence to any but myself. In one of my fobs there was a silver watch, and in the other a small quantity of gold in a purse. These gentlemen, having pen ink and paper about them made an exact inventory of everything they saw, and when they had done desired, I would set them down that they might deliver it to the Emperor. This inventory I afterwards translated into English, and is word a word as follows impromise in the right coat pocket of the great man Mountain, for so I interpret the words quimbus flesterin After the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot cloth for your Majesty's chief room of state. In the left pocket we saw a huge silver chest with the cover of the same metal, which we, the search us, were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us, stepping into it, found himself up to the mid leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces set us both as sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a prodigious bundle of white, thin substances, folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures, which we humbly conceived to be writings. Every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, ressembling the palisadoes before your Majesty's court, wherewith we conjectured the man mounting combs his head, for we did not always trouble him with questions, because we found it a great difficulty to make him understand us. In the large pocket, on the right side of his middle cover, so I translated the word and ran fullo, by which they meant my breeches, we saw a hollow pillow of iron about the length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber larger than the pillar. And upon one side of the pillar were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of. In the left pocket another engine of the same kind. In the smaller pocket on the right side were several round, flat pieces of white and red metal of different bulk. Some of the white, which seemed to be silver, were so large and heavy that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket were two black pillars, irregularly shaped. We could not with difficulty reach the top of them, as we stood at the bottom of his pocket. One of them was covered and seemed all of a piece, but at the upper end of the other there appeared a white, round substance about twice the bigness of our heads. Within each of these were enclosed a prodigious plate of steel, which, by our orders we obliged him to show us, because we apprehended they might be dangerous engines. He took them out of their cases and told us that in his own country his practice was to shave his beard with one of these and cut his meat with the other. There were two pockets which we could not enter. These he caught his fobs. They were two large slits cut into the top of his middle cover, but squeezed close by the pressure of his belly. Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom. We directed him to draw out whatever was at the end of that chain, which appeared to be a globe half silver and half of some transparent metal. Four On the transparent side, we saw certain strange figures circularly drawn, and thought we could touch them, till we found our figures stopped by the lucid substance. He put this engine into our ears, which made an incessant noise like that of a water mill. And we in conjecture it is either some unknown animal or the god that he worships. But we are more inclining to the latter opinion, because he assured us, if we understood him right, for expressed himself very imperfectly, that he seldom did anything without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life. From the left fob he took out a net almost large enough for a fisherman, but contrived to open and shut like a purse, and served him for the same use. We found therein several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold, must be of immense value. Having thus, in obedience to your Majesty's commands, diligently searched all his pockets, we observed a girdle about his waist made of the hide of some prodigious animal, from which on the left side hung a sword of the length of five men, and on the right a bag or pouch divided into two cells, each cell capable of holding three of your Majesty's subjects. In each of these cells were several globes or walls of a most ponderous metal, about the bigness of our heads, and requiring a strong hand to lift them. The other cell contained a heap of black grains, but of no great bulk or weight, for we could hold above fifty of them in the palm of our hands. This is an exact inventory of what we found about the body of the man Mountain who used us with great civility and due respect to your Majesty's commission, signed and sealed on the fourth day of the eighty ninth moon of your Majesty's auspicious rain, Clefren Freelock Marsy Freelock. When this inventory was read over to the Emperor, he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up several particulars. He first called for my cimetar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime, he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops, who then attended him to surround me at a distance with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge. But I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his majesty. He then desired me to draw my cimitar, which, although he had got some rust by the sea water, was in most parts exceedingly bright. I did so, and immediately all the troops gave a shout between terror and surprise, for the sun shone clear, and the reflection dazzled their eyes. As I waved the scimeter to and fro in my hand. His Majesty, who is a most magnanimous prince, was less daunted than I could expect. He ordered me to return it into the scabbard and cast it on the ground as gently as I could, about six feet from the end of my chain. The next thing he demanded was of the hollow iron pillars, by which he meant my pocket pistols. I drew it out, and at his desire, as well as I could breath, to him the use of it, and charging it only with powder, which, by the closeness of my pouch, happened to escape wetting in the sea, an inconvenience against which all prudent mariners take special care to provide. I first cautioned the Emperor not to be afraid, and then I let it off in the air. The astonishment here was much greater than at the sight of my cimeter. Hundreds fell down as if they had been struck dead, and even the Emperor, although he stood his ground, could not recover himself. For some time. I delivered up both my pistols in the same manner as I had done my cimeter, and then my pouch of powder and bullets, begging him that the former might be kept from fire, for it would kindle with the smallest spark and blow up his imperial palace into the air. I likewise delivered up my watch, which the Emperor was very curious to see, and commanded two of his tallest yeoman guards to bear it on a pole upon their shoulders. Draymond in England do a barrel of ale. He was amazed at the continual noise it made and the motion of the minute hand, which he could easily discern, for their sight is much more acute than ours. He asked the opinions of his learned men about it, which were various and remote, as the reader may well imagine, without my repeating, although indeed I could not very perfectly understand them. I then gave up my silver and copper money, my purse with nine large pieces of gold, and some smaller ones. My knife and razor, my comb and silver snuff box, my handkerchief and journal book, my cimitar, pistols, and pouch were conveyed in carriages to His Majesty's stores, but the rest of my goods were returned to me. I had, as I before, observed, one private pocket which escaped their search. Wherein there was a pair of spectacles, which I sometimes use for the weakness of mine eyes, a pocket perspective, and some other little conveniences, which, being of no consequence to the Emperor, I did not think myself bound in honor to discover, and I apprehended they might be lost or spoiled if I ventured them out of my possession. End of Chapter two, Part one,