Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 1/Chapter 4
from the Collection “Gulliver's Travels. Part 1”
The divisions in this summary are editorial.
After gaining his liberty in Lilliput, Gulliver asked permission to visit Mildendo, the tiny empire’s capital.
The emperor granted his request on condition that he damage neither the inhabitants nor their houses.
A careful visit to Mildendo
The people were warned of Gulliver’s visit and ordered to stay indoors. He stepped over the western gate and moved sideways through the two main streets, wearing only a short waistcoat so that his coat skirts would not catch on the roofs. He watched for anyone still in the streets, while crowds looked down from attic windows and housetops.
The city was square, with a wall around it and two broad streets crossing at its centre. Gulliver could see down the narrower lanes but could not enter them. The houses rose three to five storeys, and the shops and markets were well supplied. By his estimate, the city could hold half a million people.
At the crossing stood the emperor’s palace, surrounded by its own wall. Gulliver could step over that wall and walk around the building, but the gates between its successive courtyards were too small for him. The buildings around the outer court were too high for him to cross without damaging them.
The palace seen from within
The emperor wanted Gulliver to see the palace’s splendour, so Gulliver spent three days cutting large trees in the royal park and making two stools strong enough to support him. After the public had again been warned, he carried the stools through the city.
At the palace he stood on one stool, lifted the other over the roof and set it in the space beyond. He stepped across, then pulled the first stool after him with a hooked stick. Repeating the manoeuvre brought him into the innermost court without damaging the buildings.
Gulliver lay on his side and looked through windows left open for him. He saw splendid apartments and, in their separate rooms, the empress and the young princes with their attendants. The empress smiled at him and offered her hand through a window for him to kiss.
Gulliver reserved a fuller account of Lilliput’s history, politics, religion, natural life and customs for a larger work. For the present, he intended to relate events affecting himself or the public during his roughly nine-month stay.
Reldresal explains the empire’s troubles
About a fortnight after Gulliver’s release, Reldresal, the principal secretary for private affairs, visited him at home with one servant and asked for an hour’s conversation.
Gulliver agreed, remembering the secretary’s assistance at court. Rather than have Gulliver lie down so that he could speak into his ear, Reldresal chose to be held in his hand. He congratulated Gulliver on his freedom and claimed some credit for it, while suggesting that the court’s present difficulties had hastened the decision. He described those difficulties to Gulliver:
we labour under two mighty evils; a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion by a most potent enemy from abroad.
The rival domestic parties were distinguished by the height of their shoe heels. The High-Heels claimed that their style was more consistent with the ancient constitution, but the emperor appointed only Low-Heels to government and other offices under the Crown. His own heels were lower than those of anyone at court.
Reldresal said the quarrel had lasted about seventy moons and had made ordinary social contact between the parties impossible:
The animosities between these two parties run so high, that they will neither eat nor drink, nor talk with each other.
The High-Heels were believed to be more numerous, though the Low-Heels held power. Reldresal added that the heir to the throne was suspected of favouring the High-Heels: one of his heels was visibly higher than the other, giving him an uneven gait.
How an egg dispute became a war
Alongside these divisions, Lilliput faced an invasion from the island empire of Blefuscu. Reldresal explained that Lilliputians knew of no other regions from their histories. Their philosophers doubted Gulliver’s account of countries inhabited by people his own size and supposed he might have fallen from the moon or a star. They reasoned that even a hundred people of his size would quickly consume Lilliput’s crops and livestock.
The two empires had fought for thirty-six moons over a dispute about how to break an egg. Traditionally, eggs were opened at the larger end. When the present emperor’s grandfather had cut his finger doing so as a boy, his father had ordered all subjects to break eggs at the smaller end, on pain of severe punishment.
The law provoked six rebellions: one emperor was killed and another lost his crown. Blefuscu’s rulers encouraged the disturbances, and defeated rebels took refuge there. Reldresal told Gulliver how many had died for refusing to obey:
It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.
Hundreds of books had been written about the controversy. Those defending the Big-Endians were forbidden, and the law barred that party from holding office. Blefuscu’s ambassadors accused Lilliput of causing a religious schism by violating a doctrine of the prophet Lustrog. Reldresal gave Gulliver the disputed words from their sacred book:
That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end
In Reldresal’s opinion, the passage left the choice either to each person’s conscience or to the chief ruler. Nevertheless, the Big-Endian exiles had gained influence at Blefuscu’s court and received secret support from sympathisers in Lilliput. War followed, with victories and losses on both sides.
Lilliput had lost forty major warships, many smaller vessels and thirty thousand sailors and soldiers. Blefuscu’s losses were thought to be greater, but it had assembled a large fleet and was preparing to land an invading force. The emperor, confident in Gulliver’s courage and strength, had ordered Reldresal to explain the situation to him.
Gulliver offers to defend Lilliput
Gulliver asked Reldresal to convey his respects to the emperor. As a foreigner, he did not think it proper to interfere in Lilliput’s political parties. He was nevertheless ready to risk his life defending the emperor and the state against invaders.