You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. `Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'
`Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. `I can explain all the poems that ever were invented -- and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.'
This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:
`'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'
`That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: `there are plenty of hard words there. "Brillig" means four o'clock in the afternoon -- the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.'
`That'll do very well,' said Alice: `and "slithy"?'
`Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy". "Lithe" is the same as "active". You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word.'
`I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: `and what are "toves"?'
`Well, "toves" are something like badgers -- they're something like lizards -- and they're something like corkscrews.'
`They must be very curious-looking creatures.'
`They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty; `also they make their nests under sun-dials -- also they live on cheese.'
`And what's to "gyre" and to "gimble"?'
`To "gyre" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "gimble" is to make holes like a gimlet.'
`And "the wabe" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.
`Of course it is. It's called "wabe" you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it --'
`And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.
`Exactly so. Well then, "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "borogove" is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round -- something like a live mop.'
`And then "mome raths"?' said Alice. `I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'
`Well, a "rath" is a sort of green pig: but "mome" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home" -- meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'
`And what does "outgrabe" mean?'
`Well, "outgribing" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe -- down in the wood yonder -- and, when you've once heard it, you'll be quite content.
From "Alice through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll |
