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Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's travels into several remote nations of the world
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Свифт Джонатан
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Год: 1726
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Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's travels into several remote nations of the world
THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
[As given in the original edition.]
The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient
and intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on
the mother's side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver growing
weary of the concourse of curious people coming to him at his
house in Redriff, made a small purchase of land, with a
convenient house, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, his native
country; where he now lives retired, yet in good esteem among his
neighbours.
Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his
father dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family came from
Oxfordshire; to confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard
at Banbury in that county, several tombs and monuments of the
Gullivers.
Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the following
papers in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of them as I should
think fit. I have carefully perused them three times. The style is
very plain and simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author,
after the manner of travellers, is a little too circumstantial. There
is an air of truth apparent through the whole; and indeed the
author was so distinguished for his veracity, that it became a sort.
of proverb among his neighbours at Redriff, when any one
affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had
spoken it.
By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with the
author's permission, I communicated these papers, I now venture
to send them into the world, hoping they may be, at least for some
time, a better entertainment to our young noblemen, than the
common scribbles of politics and party.
This volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not
made bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the
winds and tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the
several voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the
management of the ship in storms, in the style of sailors; likewise
the account of longitudes and latitudes; wherein I have reason to
apprehend, that Mr. Gulliver may be a little dissatisfied. But I was
resolved to fit the work as much as possible to the general
capacity of readers. However, if my own ignorance in sea affairs
shall have led me to commit some mistakes, I alone am
answerable for them. And if any traveller hath a curiosity to see
the whole work at large, as it came from the hands of the author, I
will be ready to gratify him.
As for any further particulars relating to the author, the reader will
receive satisfaction from the first pages of the book.
RICHARD SYMPSON
A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1727.
I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be
called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed
on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels,
with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university
to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier
did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world."
But I do not remember I gave you power to consent that any thing
should be omitted, and much less that any thing should be
inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here renounce every thing
of that kind; particularly a paragraph about her majesty Queen
Anne, of most pious and glorious memory; although I did
reverence and esteem her more than any of human species. But
you, or your interpolator, ought to have considered, that it was not
my inclination, so was it not decent to praise any animal of our
composition before my master HOUYHNHNM: And besides, the
fact was altogether false; for to my knowledge, being in England
during some part of her majesty's reign, she did govern by a chief
minister; nay even by two successively, the first whereof was the
lord of Godolphin, and the second the lord of Oxford; so that you
have made me say the thing that was not. Likewise in the account
of the academy of projectors, and several passages of my.
discourse to my master HOUYHNHNM, you have either omitted
some material circumstances, or minced or changed them in such
a manner, that I do hardly know my own work. When I formerly
hinted to you something of this in a letter, you were pleased to
answer that you were afraid of giving offence; that people in
power were very watchful over the press, and apt not only to
interpret, but to punish every thing which looked like an
INNUENDO (as I think you call it). But, pray how could that
which I spoke so many years ago, and at about five thousand
leagues distance, in another reign, be applied to any of the
YAHOOS, who now are said to govern the herd; especially at a
time when I little thought, or feared, the unhappiness of living
under them? Have not I the most reason to complain, when I see
these very YAHOOS carried by HOUYHNHNMS in a vehicle, as
if they were brutes, and those the rational creatures? And indeed
to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one principal
motive of my retirement hither.
Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and
to the trust I reposed in you.
I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of
judgment, in being prevailed upon by the entreaties and false
reasoning of you and some others, very much against my own
opinion, to suffer my travels to be published. Pray bring to your
mind how often I desired you to consider, when you insisted on
the motive of public good, that the YAHOOS were a species of
animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example:
and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all.
abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason
to expect; behold, after above six months warning, I cannot learn
that my book has produced one single effect according to my
intentions. I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when
party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright;
pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense,
and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young
nobility's education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the
female YAHOOS abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good
sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and
swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the
press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own
cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink. These, and a
thousand other reformations, I firmly counted upon by your
encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the
precepts delivered in my book. And it must be owned, that seven
months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to
which YAHOOS are subject, if their natures had been capable of
the least disposition to virtue or wisdom. Yet, so far have you been
from answering my expectation in any of your letters; that on the
contrary you are loading our carrier every week with libels, and
keys, and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts; wherein I
see myself accused of reflecting upon great state folk; of
degrading human nature (for so they have still the confidence to
style it), and of abusing the female sex. I find likewise that the
writers of those bundles are not agreed among themselves; for
some of them will not allow me to be the author of my own
travels; and others make me author of books to which I am wholly
a stranger..
I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to
confound the times, and mistake the dates, of my several voyages
and returns; neither assigning the true year, nor the true month,
nor day of the month: and I hear the original manuscript is all
destroyed since the publication of my book; neither have I any
copy left: however, I have sent you some corrections, which you
may insert, if ever there should be a second edition: and yet I
cannot stand to them; but shall leave that matter to my judicious
and candid readers to adjust it as they please.
I hear some of our sea YAHOOS find fault with my sea-language,
as not proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my
first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest
mariners, and learned to speak as they did. But I have since found
that the sea YAHOOS are apt, like the land ones, to become new-fangled
in their words, which the latter change every year;
insomuch, as I remember upon each return to my own country
their old dialect was so altered, that I could hardly understand the
new. And I observe, when any YAHOO comes from London out
of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither of us are able to
deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the other.
If the censure of the YAHOOS could any way affect me, I should
have great reason to complain, that some of them are so bold as to
think my book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain, and
have gone so far as to drop hints, that the HOUYHNHNMS and
YAHOOS have no more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia..
Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of LILLIPUT,
BROBDINGRAG (for so the word should have been spelt, and
not erroneously BROBDINGNAG), and LAPUTA, I have never
yet heard of any YAHOO so presumptuous as to dispute their
being, or the facts I have related concerning them; because the
truth immediately strikes every reader with conviction. And is
there less probability in my account of the HOUYHNHNMS or
YAHOOS, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are so many
thousands even in this country, who only differ from their brother
brutes in HOUYHNHNMLAND, because they use a sort of
jabber, and do not go naked? I wrote for their amendment, and not
their approbation. The united praise of the whole race would be
of less consequence to me, than the neighing of those two
degenerate HOUYHNHNMS I keep in my stable; because from
these, degenerate as they are, I still improve in some virtues
without any mixture of vice.
Do these miserable animals presume to think, that I am so
degenerated as to defend my veracity? YAHOO as I am, it is well
known through all HOUYHNHNMLAND, that, by the
instructions and example of my illustrious master, I was able in
the compass of two years (although I confess with the utmost
difficulty) to remove that infernal habit of lying, shuffling,
deceiving, and equivocating, so deeply rooted in the very souls of
all my species; especially the Europeans.
I have other complaints to make upon this vexatious occasion; but
I forbear troubling myself or you any further. I must freely
confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my.
YAHOO nature have revived in me by conversing with a few of
your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an
unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so
absurd a project as that of reforming the YAHOO race in this
kingdom: But I have now done with all such visionary schemes
for ever.
APRIL 2, 1727.
* PART I. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT *
CHAPTER I.
[The author gives some account of himself and family. His first
inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life.
Gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner,
and carried up the country.]
My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was the third of
five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at
fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself
close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I
had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune,
I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in
London, with whom I continued four years. My father now and
then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning
navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those
who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time
or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to
my father: where, by the assistance of him and my uncle John, and
some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty
pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden: there I studied physic
two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long
voyages..
Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my
good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow, Captain
Abraham Pannel, commander; with whom I continued three years
and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and some
other parts. When I came back I resolved to settle in London; to
which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was
recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in
the Old Jewry; and being advised to alter my condition, I married
Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton,
hosier, in Newgate-street, with whom I received four hundred
pounds for a portion.
But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having
few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would
not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my
brethren. Having therefore consulted with my wife, and some of
my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon
successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six
years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to
my fortune. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best
authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good
number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the
manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their
language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my
memory.
The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary
of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family.
I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to.
Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would
not turn to account. After three years expectation that things
would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain
William Prichard, master of the Antelope, who was making a
voyage to the South Sea. We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699,
and our voyage was at first very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader
with the particulars of our adventures in those seas; let it suffice to
inform him, that in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we
were driven by a violent storm to the north-west of Van Diemen's
Land. By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30