Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 1
from the Collection “Gulliver's Travels”
Short summary
A remote island in the ocean northwest of Tasmania, November 1699. After a shipwreck, Lemuel Gulliver swam ashore and fell asleep on the grass. He woke tied to the ground by people less than six inches tall.
They drugged him, carried him to their capital and chained him in an old temple. Their ruler visited the giant and ordered him fed and taught the language.
Gulliver behaved gently and was freed on strict conditions. Lilliput was at war with the neighbouring island of Blefuscu over which end of an egg to break. Gulliver waded across the channel, towed away fifty enemy warships and received the highest honour. The emperor then wanted him to seize the rest and enslave Blefuscu.
But I endeavoured to divert him from this design... and I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery.
The emperor never forgave him. Gulliver also offended the empress by putting out a palace fire with his urine. His enemies charged him with treason, and the council decided to blind him and slowly starve him.
Warned by a grateful lord, Gulliver fled to Blefuscu. There he found a drifting boat, repaired it and sailed away in September 1701 with tiny cattle and sheep. An English merchant ship picked him up, and in April 1702 he reached England. After two months with his family, he set off on another voyage.
Detailed summary by chapters
Chapter titles are editorial.
Chapter 1. Shipwreck and capture by the Lilliputians
Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon from Nottinghamshire, studied medicine and navigation before going to sea. He married and tried to establish a London practice, but declining business and his refusal to use dishonest methods repeatedly drove him back to sea.
In May 1699 he sailed aboard the Antelope. In November, after storms and deaths among the crew, the ship struck a rock. His escape boat overturned, but he swam ashore and fell asleep. He awoke tied to the ground, with tiny armed people climbing onto him. He recalled his first reaction:
I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them... were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground.
When he loosened an arm, arrows made him lie still. The people fed him meat, bread and wine. Their ruler, the Emperor of Lilliput, ordered that he be supplied, kept prisoner and taken to the capital.
A sleeping potion in the wine let workers lift Gulliver onto a wheeled frame. Fifteen hundred horses pulled him to the city. There, crowds watched as he was chained by one leg beside an unused temple. His remaining bonds were cut, allowing him to stand and crawl inside to rest.
Chapter 2. The emperor's prisoner surrenders his weapons
From his lodging Gulliver surveyed tiny fields and trees. The emperor came to inspect him, keeping beyond his chain after his horse shied at the giant. Food and drink were brought, but Gulliver's attempts at several European languages failed. Later, spectators shot at him, and the guard handed over six offenders. He frightened them with his knife, then freed them unharmed.
Reports of his mercy helped settle the council's doubts. Ministers had feared that feeding him would cause famine, but killing him might leave a corpse large enough to spread disease. They ordered nearby villages to provide food at public expense. Six hundred servants attended him, hundreds of tailors made clothes, and six scholars taught him the language. A bed was assembled from six hundred small beds. Visitors needed licences, since crowds had begun neglecting their work.
Within about three weeks Gulliver could ask for freedom. The emperor required patience, the council's approval and an oath to keep the peace. He also requested a search for weapons. Gulliver helped two officers examine his pockets, concealing one private pocket. Their inventory described his handkerchief, comb, money, papers and other belongings as enormous curiosities. They wondered whether his ticking watch was an animal or a god.
Surrounded by three thousand armed soldiers, Gulliver surrendered his sword and demonstrated a pistol with a powder charge. The flash of the blade alarmed the troops, and the gunshot made hundreds fall in fright. He gave up both pistols, bullets and powder, warning that a spark could destroy the palace. The emperor returned his other possessions. In the hidden pocket Gulliver retained his spectacles, a small telescope and other useful objects that he feared losing or damaging.
Chapter 3. Court entertainments and the conditions of freedom
As confidence grew, people danced on Gulliver's hand and children played in his hair. The emperor entertained him with rope-dancing contests, in which candidates for office competed by jumping highest without falling. Ministers also performed, sometimes suffering serious injuries. The treasurer, Flimnap, was the finest dancer.
Gulliver ranked his friend Reldresal, the principal secretary for private affairs, second among these dancers.
Other competitors won coloured silk honours by jumping over or crawling under a stick. Gulliver provided his own entertainment: mounted soldiers staged exercises on a handkerchief stretched over sticks. He ended the display after a horse tore the cloth and fell. His lost hat was recovered near the shore, damaged by being dragged behind horses. The emperor also ordered thousands of troops to parade beneath Gulliver's spread legs. Eventually the council approved his release.
The high admiral, Skyresh Bolgolam, opposed freeing him but obtained the right to draw up the conditions, which Gulliver considered partly dishonourable.
Gulliver swore not to leave without permission, harm inhabitants or enter the capital unannounced. He agreed to carry messengers, assist royal building work, measure the coast and defend Lilliput against Blefuscu. In return he received daily provisions equal to those of 1,728 inhabitants, calculated from his greater size. His chains were removed, and the emperor welcomed him as a useful servant.
Chapter 4. A visit to Mildendo and the causes of war with Blefuscu
With permission, Gulliver visited Mildendo, the capital. Residents were warned to remain indoors while he stepped over the gate and moved sideways through the main streets, wearing a short waistcoat to avoid catching roofs. Crowds watched from windows and housetops. The square city had busy shops, markets and houses several storeys high. He estimated that it could hold half a million people. At its centre stood the palace, whose inner courts he could not reach without damaging buildings.
To overcome this difficulty, he made two large stools from trees in the royal park. Standing on one, he moved the other across a roof, stepped over and pulled the first after him with a hooked stick. Repeating this movement brought him into the innermost court. He lay down to look through open windows at the splendid rooms and the royal family without damaging the palace.
About a fortnight after his release, Reldresal visited and explained two threats to the empire. At home, rival parties wore high or low heels and refused ordinary social contact with one another. The High-Heels were more numerous, but the emperor appointed only Low-Heels. The heir wore heels of unequal height, making his loyalties uncertain. Abroad, Blefuscu was preparing an invasion. The two empires had fought for thirty-six moons over a dispute about which end of an egg should be broken before eating it.
Traditionally eggs had been opened at the larger end. After an imperial ancestor cut his finger, his father ordered everyone to use the smaller end. Six rebellions followed; one emperor died and another lost his throne. Eleven thousand people had died rather than obey. Big-Endians were barred from office, their books were banned, and many fled to Blefuscu. Reldresal explained the religious wording over which the countries disputed:
That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man’s conscience...
Blefuscu supported the exiles, who also had allies in Lilliput. The war had cost Lilliput forty major warships and thirty thousand men. Gulliver declined to join domestic factions but offered to risk his life defending the emperor and country against invasion.
Chapter 5. The captured fleet, imperial displeasure and the palace fire
Gulliver inspected Blefuscu's fleet through his telescope, learned the channel's depth and prepared fifty hooks with strong cables. He waded and swam across, terrifying the crews into abandoning their ships. Arrows struck him as he attached the hooks, but his spectacles protected his eyes. He cut the anchor cables and towed fifty warships to Lilliput. The emperor, initially afraid that Gulliver had drowned, rewarded him with the highest title of honour, Nardac.
The emperor then wanted the remaining ships captured so that he could conquer Blefuscu and force its people to abandon the Big-Endian practice. Gulliver refused to help enslave a free people. Several ministers supported him, but the emperor never forgave the refusal. Peace ambassadors arrived about three weeks later, and Gulliver helped them before accepting an invitation to visit their country.
Permission for the visit was granted coldly. Gulliver learned that Flimnap and Bolgolam had described his friendship with the ambassadors as disloyalty. Soon afterwards he was awakened at midnight by cries for help: a maid had fallen asleep reading, and fire threatened the Empress of Lilliput's rooms.
He hurried there without his coat. The tiny buckets were useless, so he urinated on the flames and extinguished them within minutes. Although he saved the palace, urinating in its grounds was a capital offence. The emperor promised a pardon, but none arrived. Disgusted, the empress moved to distant rooms, refused to restore the damaged apartments and vowed revenge.
Chapter 6. Lilliputian laws, education and Gulliver's life at court
During his stay Gulliver learned about Lilliput's customs. Its people stood under six inches tall, and plants and animals were proportionately small. They wrote diagonally and buried their dead head downward, expecting the earth eventually to turn over. Their original laws punished false accusations severely and compensated the innocent. Fraud and ingratitude could bring death, while lawful conduct earned rewards.
Gulliver recalled their response when he explained that English laws punished wrongdoing without rewarding obedience:
And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward.
The image of Justice carried an open purse and a sheathed sword. Gulliver also recorded the principle that originally guided public appointments:
In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities... they believe that the common size of human understandings is fitted to some station or other...
An able but dishonest official was considered more dangerous than an honest person of ordinary ability. Candidates also had to believe in divine providence. Gulliver distinguished these principles from later corruption: rope-dancing for office and stick-jumping for honours had been introduced by the reigning emperor's grandfather.
Most children entered public nurseries at twenty moons, since parents were considered unsuitable educators. Training depended on rank and future occupation. Noble boys learned justice, courage, modesty, mercy, religion and public duty under close supervision. Girls received similar moral instruction, with more domestic training and less academic study. Parents visited only twice yearly, with affection and gifts restricted. Families paid fees and saved for their children. Labourers' children stayed at home to learn agricultural work, while hospitals supported the old and sick. Begging was unknown.
Gulliver made furniture from large trees. Hundreds of workers sewed his linen and clothes, while cooks and waiters supplied his enormous meals. When the imperial family dined on his table, he ate heartily to impress them. Flimnap used the occasion to complain that his upkeep had exhausted the treasury and advised dismissing him. Jealousy deepened the treasurer's hostility after informers alleged that his wife secretly visited Gulliver.
Gulliver defended Flimnap's wife, insisting that she came openly with companions, like other court ladies whose coaches he lifted onto his table for conversation.
He denied receiving private visits except from Reldresal on official business. Flimnap eventually learned the truth and reconciled with his wife, but remained Gulliver's enemy. The emperor's reliance on him weakened Gulliver's position.
Chapter 7. The treason plot and flight to Blefuscu
While Gulliver prepared to visit Blefuscu, a court lord whom he had helped in disgrace came secretly at night. Gulliver dismissed the bearers and hid his visitor inside.
The lord revealed treason charges prepared by Bolgolam, Flimnap and other officials. Gulliver was accused of urinating in the palace, refusing to complete Blefuscu's conquest, receiving its ambassadors and planning to visit its emperor. His enemies proposed burning his house, using poisoned arrows or poisoning his clothes, but the emperor resisted an immediate death sentence.
Reldresal proposed blinding him as an act of mercy. When feeding him remained an objection, the plan was extended to reducing his provisions secretly until he died. Only the blinding would be officially recorded. Bolgolam still demanded death, supported by the empress. The visitor warned that surgeons would blind Gulliver in three days. Gulliver recalled how such decisions were publicly presented:
...that after the court had decreed any cruel execution... the Emperor always made a speech to his whole Council, expressing his great lenity and tenderness...
He distrusted a trial influenced by powerful enemies. Though able to destroy the capital, he rejected violence because of his oath and past favours. Instead he notified Reldresal that he was using his permission to visit Blefuscu. Taking a warship with his clothes and bedding, he pulled it across the channel. He received a generous royal welcome, concealed the plot and offered only services consistent with his duty to Lilliput. He slept outdoors.
Chapter 8. Escape by boat and return to England
Three days later Gulliver found an overturned boat offshore. With ships and thousands of sailors supplied by the Emperor of Blefuscu, he brought it ashore and prepared it for a voyage home.
Lilliput demanded his return for punishment, threatening to declare him a traitor. Blefuscu refused to bind him and explained that he would soon depart. Its emperor offered protection, but Gulliver declined further service to rulers or any risk of renewing their quarrel. Workers made sails and equipment; he loaded provisions and tiny cattle and sheep.
The emperor forbade him to carry away inhabitants and searched his pockets. Gulliver sailed on 24 September 1701. Two days later an English merchant ship sighted him. He recalled his joy when he recognized its colours:
It is not easy to express the joy I was in upon the unexpected hope of once more seeing my beloved country, and the dear pledges I had left in it. ...but my heart leaped within me to see her English colours.
The captain, John Biddel, initially doubted his account, but the tiny animals and royal gifts convinced him. An acquaintance aboard also vouched for Gulliver.
They reached England on 13 April 1702. Except for a sheep killed by rats, the animals survived. Gulliver earned money displaying them and sold them for six hundred pounds; their breed later multiplied. He stayed with his wife and two children for only two months before his desire to travel returned. Leaving money, a house and property income for his family's support, he said a tearful farewell and boarded the Adventure, a merchant ship bound for Surat.