"Lewis Carroll - The Hunting Of The Snark" - читать интересную книгу автора (huntingOfTheSnark_html)

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK
an Agony in Eight Fits
by
Lewis Carroll


PREFACE

If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense
were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive
poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.4)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural
History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how
it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about
appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week
to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came
for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of
the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use
to appeal to the Bellman about it-- he would only refer to his Naval
Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which
none of them had ever been able to understand-- so it generally ended
in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman
used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong,
but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the
Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and
the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remonstrance was
impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing
day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed
backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the
Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that
has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in
"slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to
rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is
pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give
it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard
works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed
into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation