O Frabjous Day, Friends!
As many of you know, I am of the opinion that the poem “Jabberwocky” ought to be read, aloud, at least once a year. Today my former co-workers sent me a video of themselves doing just that — thank you, Watershed; I’m really touched (miss you all! ::sniff::). There is even a Watershed custom board game featuring “Jabberwocky!”
You too can experience the Calloohity for yourselves: I challenge you to read “Jabberwocky” aloud to someone else today.
If you shy away from this challenge because you don’t know what half of the words mean, I refer you to Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
With every poem, a reader in a sense chooses what you mean each of the poet’s words to mean. Reading “Jabberwocky,” especially out loud, simply requires you to make your choices of meaning more conscious acts. Reading aloud is a form of translation — you are translating the written “Jabberwocky” into a spoken “Jabberwocky.” Keith Lim has also compiled a lovely collection of translations of “Jabberwocky” — into languages ranging from Spanish and Japanese to C++ and Klingon.
Callay!
Ellen
Jabberwocky
‘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.
“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 19, 2010 and Poem-a-Day April 8, 2007 — and for a Watershed Tues@2 staff meeting every April since the company’s founding in 2007.