Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 2/Chapter 5
from the Collection âGulliver's Travels. Part 2â
The division of this summary into sections is editorial.
At the court of a country of giants, Gulliver might have been happy had his small size not exposed him to humiliating and dangerous accidents.
His young nurse, Glumdalclitch, often carried him into the palace gardens in a small box and let him walk.
Dangers in the garden
Gulliver once joked about the Queenâs dwarf beside some dwarf apple trees. In revenge, the dwarf shook a tree over him, and an enormous apple knocked him down. Gulliver asked that the dwarf be pardoned because he had provoked him.
On another visit, a hailstorm battered Gulliver to the ground. He crawled under a border of thyme for shelter, but his bruises kept him indoors for ten days. Later, while Glumdalclitch was out of hearing, a gardenerâs spaniel picked him up and carried him unharmed to its master. The frightened gardener returned him to Glumdalclitch, who scolded the man; she and Gulliver kept the incident from the court.
Glumdalclitch resolved never again to leave him outdoors unattended. Gulliver had already concealed other mishaps for fear of that decision: he had escaped a diving kite, fallen into a mole-hole and injured his shin on a snailâs shell. Small birds showed no fear of him. He knocked down a linnet with a cudgel, but it recovered and beat him with its wings until a servant killed it. The Queen ordered it served for Gulliverâs dinner.
Visits to the ladies and an execution
The Queenâs maids of honour invited Glumdalclitch and Gulliver to their rooms, where they handled him like a plaything. Their smell and perfume disgusted him, though he recalled that a tiny friend in Lilliput had once complained of his own smell. The ladies also undressed without embarrassment before him. One young woman played tricks on him until he asked Glumdalclitch to excuse them from further visits.
A nephew of Glumdalclitchâs governess persuaded them to attend the execution of a man who had murdered his acquaintance. Glumdalclitch went reluctantly; Gulliver, though he hated such spectacles, was curious. The prisoner was beheaded with a giant sword, and the force of the blood and the bouncing head startled Gulliver even from half a mile away.
A boat for the Queenâs amusement
Knowing Gulliverâs seafaring experience, the Queen asked whether rowing might improve his health. He explained that he could row and sail, but the countryâs boats and rivers were too large for him. The Queen offered to have a boat made and provide somewhere to use it.
A joiner built the boat to Gulliverâs instructions. After a trial in a cistern proved too cramped, the Queen had a vast wooden trough installed in the palace. Gulliver rowed there for pleasure and entertained the ladies, who fanned his sail while he steered. Glumdalclitch hung the boat up to dry afterward.
The pastime brought new dangers. Once, the governess dropped Gulliver while lifting him into the boat; a pin in her clothing caught him until Glumdalclitch rescued him. Another time a frog hidden in the water climbed aboard and nearly overturned the boat. Gulliver insisted on dealing with it himself and drove it out with an oar.
The monkey carries Gulliver to the roof
During warm weather, Glumdalclitch left Gulliver in her locked room with the window open. A kitchen clerkâs monkey climbed in, reached into Gulliverâs living box and seized him by his coat. It held him like a baby, squeezing him when he struggled. Gulliver thought the animal had mistaken him for one of its own young.
When someone approached the door, the monkey carried him out onto the roof. Glumdalclitch cried out, servants fetched ladders, and a crowd watched as the monkey tried to feed Gulliver food from its cheek pouch. Some spectators threw stones, but were stopped because they might hit him.
As men climbed toward it, the monkey abandoned Gulliver on a ridge tile and escaped. Gulliver feared falling until one of Glumdalclitchâs footmen reached him and carried him down in his pocket. She removed the food from his mouth, and vomiting relieved him, but his bruises kept him in bed for two weeks. The court sent daily enquiries, the Queen visited, and the monkey was killed; such animals were thereafter forbidden at the palace.
Boasts and another humiliation
After Gulliver recovered, the King teased him about the monkey and asked what he would have done in his own country. Gulliver claimed he could fight a dozen European monkeys and boasted that, had fear not prevented him from drawing his sword, he might have wounded his enormous captor. The court burst out laughing. Gulliver reflected on his failed attempt to defend his reputation among people so much larger than himself:
how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavour doing himself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.
Soon afterward, Glumdalclitch went into the countryside with her governess to recover from an illness. Gulliver left his travelling box for a walk and tried to jump over a cowpat, but landed knee-deep in it. A footman wiped him as clean as he could, and Glumdalclitch confined him to his box until they returned. The Queen heard the story, and the footmen spread it through the court, where Gulliver remained the subject of jokes for days.