Wednesday, October 17, 2007

'twas brillig... (two posts in one day!)



As I have mentioned before, I love reading my hit statistics and seeing where my readers are and how they found me. Many of my hits come from quite mundane google searches - Acima supermarket (I get that a lot - twice today alone), restaurants, and wifi in Marrakech and so forth. Some are a little more unusual, such as Marrakech neo-colonialism.

But best of all has to be fact that yesterday, two separate people, on opposite sides of the Unites States, found my blog by googling "Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!" Isn't that wonderful? I wonder why? If either reader comes back and sees this, please do tell me if there was a particular reason, such as a competition, or if it was just a marvellous coincidence.

Although I assume that all of my readers can recite Jabberwocky from memory, for the benefit of the one of two of you who can't...

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`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, has 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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah! But can they recite the Jabberwocky in multiple languages? John Julian Norwich can: and at risk of spoiling a future Christmas present to you, let me point you towards his Christmas Crackers, where it appears in French (and THERE'S a title for the Paris blog), Latin and Russian.
For your homework, I would like you to turn it back into Anglo-Saxon. You know you remember how...