The Complete Alice in Wonderland (61 page)

Here the speaker sat down in his place,

And directed the Judge to refer to his notes

And briefly to sum up the case.

But the Judge said he never had summed up before;

So the Snark undertook it instead,

And summed it so well that it came to far more

Than the Witnesses ever had said!

When the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,

As the word was so puzzling to spell;

But they ventured to hope that the Snark wouldn’t mind

Undertaking that duty as well.

So the Snark found the verdict, although, as it owned,

It was spent with the toils of the day:

When it said the word “GUILTY!” the Jury all groaned,

And some of them fainted away.

Then the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite

Too nervous to utter a word:

When it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,

And the fall of a pin might be heard.

“Transportation for life” was the sentence it gave,

“And
then
to be fined forty pound.”

The Jury all cheered, though the Judge said he feared

That the phrase was not legally sound.

But their wild exultation was suddenly checked

When the jailer informed them, with tears,

Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,

As the pig had been dead for some years.

The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:

But the Snark, though a little aghast,

As the lawyer to whom the defense was intrusted,

Went bellowing on to the last.

Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed

To grow every moment more clear:

Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,

Which the Bellman rang close at his ear.

Fit the Seventh:

The Banker’s Fate

THEY sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new

It was matter for general remark,

Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view

In his zeal to discover the Snark.

But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,

A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh

And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,

For he knew it was useless to fly.

He offered large discount—he offered a cheque

(Drawn “to bearer”) for seven-pounds-ten:

But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck

And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause—while those frumious jaws

Went savagely snapping around—

He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,

Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared

Led on by that fear-stricken yell:

And the Bellman remarked “It is just as I feared!”

And solemnly tolled on his bell.

He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace

The least likeness to what he had been:

While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white—

A wonderful thing to be seen!

To the horror of all who were present that day.

He uprose in full evening dress,

And with senseless grimaces endeavoured to say

What his tongue could no longer express.

Down he sank in a chair—ran his hands through his hair—

And chanted in mimsiest tones

Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity,

While he rattled a couple of bones.

“Leave him here to his fate—it is getting so late!”

The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.

“We have lost half the day. Any further delay,

And we sha’n’t catch a Snark before night!”

Fit the Eighth:

The Vanishing

THEY sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,

And the Beaver, excited at last,

Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,

For the daylight was nearly past.

“There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said,

“He is shouting like mad, only hark!

He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,

He has certainly found a Snark!”

They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed

“He was always a desperate wag!”

They beheld him—their Baker—their hero unnamed—

On the top of a neighboring crag,

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.

In the next, that wild figure they saw

(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,

While they waited and listened in awe.

“It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,

And seemed almost too good to be true.

Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:

Then the ominous words “It’s a Boo—”

Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air

A weary and wandering sigh

Then sounded like “—jum!” but the others declare

It was only a breeze that went by.

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found

Not a button, or feather, or mark,

By which they could tell that they stood on the ground

Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—-

For the Snark
was
a Boojum, you see.

THE END

By Kent David Kelly

DESPITE ITS compelling intricacies and the incessant drive of its general narrative,
The Hunting of the Snark
is famous for being perfectly impenetrable. In other words, no one really knows what is means. The author pointedly refused to ever explain the work, other than to praise those readers whose interpretations he liked. (Carroll’s own favorite interpretation by someone else is that the poem is about the pursuit of happiness.)

As such, my own analysis which appears here is wide open to response and counter. Given similar themes which arise in the “Alice” stories, and the fact that many of the in-jokes in his work draw references from Carroll’s diaries and the events in his life, I believe I have a
fairly
solid case for the conclusions I have drawn. By this time, however, you as the reader should be quite adept at discerning Carroll’s veiled intents and purposes on your own. You then, good reader, are quite welcome to discover explanations better than mine wherever you wish!

Introductory Materials

The Front Cover Illustration:
Henry Holiday’s illustration for the front cover of the first edition shows the Bellman, surrounding by a nighttime swathe of stars, perched on the mast and ringing his bell.

On the Nature of Agony:
It should be noted that the mock-seriousness of
The Hunting of the Snark
is probably intended to parody Samuel Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Carroll’s sub-title, “An Agony in Eight Fits,” pokes fun at the melodramatic anguish in Coleridge’s tale of a seafarer’s misadventures.

The Riddle of the Poem:
The prefatory piece is one of Carroll’s famous acrostic poems. The first letters of each line spell “Gertrude Chataway,” the girl to whom
The Hunting of the Snark
was dedicated. Also, more cleverly, the first words of each verse are “Girt-Rude,” “Chat-Away.”
 
Gertrude was one of Carroll’s dear child-friends, but he did once write to Alice, “... My mental picture is as vivid as ever, of one who was, through so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of child-friends since your time: but they have been quite a different thing.”

The Helmsman With Tears in His Eyes:
Carroll here is referring to the Boots.

Rule 42 of the Naval Code:
Here, Carroll is making an insider’s joke. He was 42 when
The Hunting of the Snark
was published, and there were 42 boxes left on the shore when the ship set sail for Jabberwock Isle. Also, when Alice was defying the King of Hearts, the King was using Rule 42 to try to eject her from the court. Douglas Adams, providing a lasting tribute to Carroll’s obsession with this mysterious number, would later have 42 be the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”

Pistol and the Bezonian:
Carroll’s references to Pistol, the Bezonian, “Speak or die,” etc. may seem cryptic. They all refer to Shakespeare’s play, “History of Henry IV,” in which a character is forced to identify himself under extreme duress. Naming the wrong king would bring death. The naming of “Rilchiam” is a joking combination of Richard and William, so that someone who was asked to name either William or Richard would have their life spared no matter which answer was right.

Fit the First

The Bellman Revealed:
Holiday’s illustration shows the Bellman bringing his crew ashore, one by one, in a nonsensical fashion (lifting them by their hair). The Bellman bears a surprising resemblance to a poet Carroll greatly admired, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson was arguably England’s greatest poet. He became Poet Laureate in 1850 and stayed such until 1892, throughout virtually all of Carroll’s writing career. His style was romantic, dreaming and melancholy. The man was an inspiration to Carroll, telling the story of England with all of its people’s hopes and dreams. Indeed, the English populace followed the idealistic vision of Tennyson throughout his life. In this way, Tennyson was in every way the bellman, or town crier, of London itself. He not only gave voice to England’s dreams; when he chimed, everyone knew they were about to hear something important. If the Bellman is indeed Tennyson, the voyage to hunt the Snark is probably here leaving from his home on the Isle of Wight (or its equivalent, off the shores of Looking-Glass Land) and landing upon the Isle of Man (whose dream manifestation is the “manxome” Jabberwock Isle).