Jabberwocky Jabberwocky Jazz dance Category="Alice in Wonderland"Category="British poems"Category="Fictional species"Category="Nonce words"
For other uses of the name Jabberwocky, see Jabberwocky (disambiguation).

"Jabberwocky" or "ykcowrebbaJ" is a poem (of Nonsense verse) found in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. It is generally considered to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language.

The poem

[image]
'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 hast 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.

Glossary

Several of the words in the poem are of Carroll's own invention, many of them portmanteaus. In the book, the character of Humpty Dumpty gives definitions for the nonsense words in the first Stanza. In later writings, Lewis Carroll explained several of the others. The rest of the nonsense words were never explicitly defined by Carroll (who even claimed that he did not know what some of them meant). An extended analysis of the poem is given in the book The Annotated Alice, including writings from Carroll about how he formed some of his idiosyncratic words. A few words that Carroll invented in this poem (namely "chortled", "galumphing", and "Vorpal") have entered the language. The word jabberwocky itself is sometimes used to refer to nonsense language.

[image]

Bandersnatch - A swift moving creature with snapping jaws. Capable of extending its neck. (From The Hunting of the Snark.)
Borogove - A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live MOP.
Brillig - Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner. (According to Mischmasch, it is derived from the verb to bryl or broil.)
Burbled - Possibly a mixture of "bleat", "murmur", and "warble". (according to Carroll in a letter ). (Burble is an actual word, circa 1303, meaning to form bubbles as in boiling water.)
Frumious - Combination of "fuming" and "furious." (From the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark.)
Gimble - To make holes like a Gimlet.
Gyre - To go round and round like a Gyroscope. (Gyre is an actual word, circa 1566, meaning a circular or spiral motion or form; especially a giant circular oceanic surface current.)
Jubjub - A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion. (From The Hunting of the Snark.)
Mimsy - Combination of "flimsy" and "miserable."
Mome - Possibly short for "from home," meaning that the raths had lost their way.
Outgrabe - Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of Sneeze in the middle.
Rath - A sort of green Pig. (See Origin and Structure for further details.)
Slithy - Combination of "lithe" and "slimy."
Toves - A combination of a Badger, a Lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials. They live on Cheese.
Uffish - A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish. ( according to Carroll in a letter).
Wabe - The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.

Pronunciation

[image]Wikimedia Commons has a spoken version of Jabberwocky in United States English, read by Wiktionary contributor Dvortygirl.

In the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll wrote:

[Let] me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity.

Origin and structure

The first Stanza of the poem originally appeared in Mischmasch, a periodical that Carroll wrote and illustrated for the amusement of his family. It was entitled "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry." Carroll also gave translations of some of the words which are different from Humpty Dumpty's. For example, a "rath" is described as a species of land Turtle that lived on swallows and oysters. Also, brillig is spelt with two ys rather than with two is.

Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Times Literary Supplement (March 1, 1957), and later in The Lewis Carroll Handbook (1962), suggests that the rest of the poem may have been inspired by an old German ballad, "The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains." In this epic poem "a young shepherd slays a monstrous Griffin." It was translated into English by Lewis Carroll's relative Menella Bute Smedley in 1846, many years before the appearance of the Alice books.

The inspiration for the Jabberwock allegedly came from a tree in the gardens of Christ Church, Oxford, where Carroll was a mathematician (under his real name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The tree in question is large and ancient with many sprawling, twisted branches somewhat suggestive of tentacles, or the Hydra of Greek mythology.

The poem is particularly interesting because, although it contains many nonsensical words, the structure is perfectly consistent with classic English poetry. The sentence structure is accurate (another aspect that has been challenging to reproduce in other languages), the poetic forms are observed (e.g. quatrain verse, rhymed, iambic meter), and a "story" is somewhat discernible in the flow of events. According to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas - only I don't exactly know what they are!"

Translations

"Jabberwocky" has become famous around the world, with translations into many languages, including Spanish, German, Latin, French, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Bulgarian, Japanese, Polish and Esperanto. The task of translation is the more notable and difficult because many of the principal words of the poem were simply made up by Carroll, having had no previous meaning. What the translators have done with the invented words, it appears, is to make up words of their own that have a minimal Levenshtein distance (up to homophones) from Carroll's, while respecting the morphology of the language to be translated into. Both the original and the invented words echo actual words in the Lexicon, but not necessarily ones with similar meanings. Nonetheless, the overall spirit of the poem is preserved. Example translations of the first stanza are:

French (Frank L. Warrin)German (Robert Scott)German (Christian Enzensberger)Bulgarian (Lazar Goldman & Stefan Gechev)Russian (Samuil Marshak)

Il brilgue: les tôves lubricilleux
Se gyrent en vrillant dans le guave.
Enmîmès sont les gougebosqueux
Et le mômerade horsgrave.

Es brillig war. Die schlichten Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mümsige Burggoven
Die mohmen Räth' ausgraben.

Verdaustig war's, und glasse Wieben
Rotterten gorkicht im Gemank.
Gar elump war der Pluckerwank
Und die gabben Schweisel frieben.

Бе сгладне и честлинестите комбурси
търляха се и сврецваха в плите;
съвсем окласни бяха тук щурпите
и отма равапсатваха прасурси.

Варкалось. Хливкие шорьки
Пырялись по наве,
И хрюкотали зелюки,
Как мюмзики в мове.

There are several Polish translations of this poem, including one by a noted poet Stanisław Barańczak and well-known politician and bridge player Janusz Korwin-Mikke, it is interesting to compare how different interpreters had tackled the problem:

Stanisław Barańczak
Dziaberliada		Janusz Korwin-Mikke
Żabrołak		Jolanta Kozak
Dziaberlak		Maciej Słomczyński
Dżabbersmok		Robert Stiller
Żabrołaki

Brzdęśniało już; ślimonne prztowie
Wyrło i warło się w gulbieży;
Zmimszałe ćwiły borogowie
I rcie grdypały z mrzerzy.

Błyszniało - szlisgich hopuch świr
Tęczując w kałdach świtrzem wre,
Mizgłupny był borolągw hyr,
Chrząszczury wlizły młe.

Bzdrężyło. Szłapy maślizgajne
Bujowierciły w gargazonach
Tubylerczykom spełły fajle,
Humpel wyświchnął ponad.

Było smaszno, a jaszmije smukwijne
Świdrokrętnie na zegwniku wężały,
Peliczaple stały smutcholijne
I zbłąkinie rykoświstąkały.

Był czas mrusztławy, ślibkie skrątwy
Na wałzach wiercząc świrypły,
A mizgłe do cna boroglątwy
I zdomne świszczury zgrzypły.

Derivative works

References in popular culture

See also

External links

[image]
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Jabberwocky