One Dozen Jabberwocks

January 19, 2018 10:55 AM

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (33 comments total)

Fucking mome raths. It's always ALL about the mome raths, isn't it?
posted by Samizdata at 11:09 AM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

John Hurt is wrong, though. Jabberwocky appeared in Through the Looking Glass, not Alice in Wonderland.
posted by Xoc at 11:20 AM on January 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Another musical version
posted by rhizome at 11:31 AM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I went looking for a version of it auf Deutsch, which I learned a bazillion years ago and have been unable to forget, and instead found a German-dubbed version of Terry Gilliam's 1977 film.

YouTube is weird.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:33 AM on January 19, 2018

Aaargh none of these is the version I remember - as a kid, I had an album called something like "Favorite Disney Songs;" it had Jabberwocky and Whale of a Tale and Lavender's Blue and several others that aren't coming to mind.

It was an 8-track, and this was 1978 or '79. Jabberwocky had a chorus that wasn't in the original poem - something like,

"If it was, it would be;
If it were, it could be;
As it isn't, it's quaint,
'Cause as it is -- it ain't."

Haven't thought of it for years. Thank you.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:34 AM on January 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

I found a version of the song I remember! It's apparently called 'Twas Brillig. That's the tune, but I'm pretty sure I remember it being sung by a single man's voice, not a chorus.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:39 AM on January 19, 2018

The poem has been translated to Spanish a bunch of times and there isn't even an agreed translation of the title. Back in the day I read the translation of Martin Gardner's annotated edition of Alice so I know it as "Jerigóndor" but I can't find a reading of that.
posted by sukeban at 11:48 AM on January 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

galumph galumph galumph galumph galumph
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:07 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

> John Hurt is wrong, though

I'm pretty sure he also, like so many, says "borogroves" which I find unreasonably annoying every time.
posted by merlynkline at 12:14 PM on January 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

The vorpal possibilities of Chinese are explored here and here. Zhao Yuanren was a genius in the frabjous degree, all right.
posted by homerica at 12:16 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Some people say Gyre with a hard G and others with a soft. I had to get down to the fourth video to find a softie. The former has the advantage of alliteration with the Gimble, and the latter evokes gyroscopes.

I'm team hard all the way. It just sounds so much better.
posted by bitslayer at 12:35 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Gyre" is also a real English word meaning any spiral, usually pronounced with a soft G. I always assumed that Carroll was using that word for its literal meaning as well as for its sound, and being playful by using it as a verb rather than a noun (as it's more often used). Thus, I've always believed soft G to be the correct pronunciation.
posted by 256 at 12:56 PM on January 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think there's a section in through the looking good where Humpty tells Alice how to pronounce gyre. And yeah, John Hurt says both "borogroves" and "vorpal blade" but it's a nice recitation otherwise. The ten year old inside me who was very proud about memorizing Jabberwocky is just a nit picker.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:17 PM on January 19, 2018

http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/poem/humptydumpty.html

Team soft g. Gyre as in gyroscope.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:20 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gyre = soft like gyroscope
Gimble = hard like gimme

They're different because that adds to the general disorientation that one should feel when reciting this poem.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:28 PM on January 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

What’s wrong with Vorpal blade?
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 1:30 PM on January 19, 2018

It's vorpal sword, isn't it?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:36 PM on January 19, 2018

It's both blade and sword.

"He took his vorpal sword in hand"

"The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!"
posted by hanov3r at 1:46 PM on January 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah, but Hurt says blade the first time around.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:51 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Eh, I can forgive that more readily than I can Gaiman saying "The claws that bite / the jaws that catch".
posted by hanov3r at 2:10 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is relevant to my interests.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 2:15 PM on January 19, 2018 [11 favorites]

So I’m alone in giving mome two syllables (and a long e), for meter?

(Someone’s collected a bunch of translations here.)
posted by progosk at 3:55 PM on January 19, 2018

Jabberwocky also served as inspiration for other, er, artistic creations. Fire up a bowl and remember those thrilling days of yesteryear (in your biochemistry class, I mean) and enjoy Protein synthesis: an epic on the cellular level. Recitation starts at 3:50.
posted by Sublimity at 4:36 PM on January 19, 2018

In the 1970s, during Ambrosia's 'we can be more ProgRock than those Brit bands' period, their song "Mama Frog" contained a break for a reading of Jabberwocky (starting at about 2:35), followed by a redneck-sounding voice laughing about some hunting accident.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:32 PM on January 19, 2018

I got unreasonably annoyed by people saying "borogroves" (Hurt, Cumberbatch, I lost track) and gyre with a soft G because Carroll specifically outlines how it is pronounced when Humpty Dumpty is explaining parts of it to Alice. I also got annoyed by people rushing through it - onetwo onetwo, barely pausing to let the tension build - but also by Christopher Lee's lugubrious and overly drawn-out delivery. Neil Gaiman clearly forgot stuff and you can see him trying to remember. I won't even go into the massacre that was the Fargo version. Maybe I just can't be pleased by other people's versions, I thought.

And then I hit the Muppets.

PERFECTION!

Clearly I must have seen this at an early age and forgotten all about it, but so much of their delivery is exactly the way I recite it (and therefore the best way). I do the silly "burble burble" of the Jabberwock, and even the "galumph galumph", which I always thought I had made up but hey, I am happy to credit the Muppet Show for the interpretation. Plus they even got the background creatures right - the toves and borogoves and mome raths. Just wonderful. Made my day.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:43 PM on January 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also the Erutan version was interesting. She has a nice voice.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:50 PM on January 19, 2018

I saw two versions of this performed in like twenty minutes time at the Dickens Christmas Faire. One was rather college theater, but my God, seeing the Dangerous Puppets version was brilliant. It's not the same without the interaction with the hoi polloi - it's a lot less fun - but the video conveys some of it.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:23 PM on January 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

ErisLordFreedom: "Jabberwocky had a chorus that wasn't in the original poem - something like,

"If it was, it would be;
If it were, it could be;
As it isn't, it's quaint,
'Cause as it is -- it ain't.""

which is a rewording of something Tweedledee says in Through The Looking Glass:

'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

posted by namewithoutwords at 10:19 PM on January 19, 2018

ErisLordFreedom, you're thinking of 'Twas Brillig from the Disney animated version of Alice. The version you linked to is a jazzy cover of the original spooky-funny tune sung in the film by the Cheshire Cat (voiced by the great Sterling Holloway).

Do any of these links feature the Terry Gilliam film? Or the Svankmajer short? Or the delightfully eccentric version by Bluworm? (Don't have time to click through all dozen, so I figured I'd throw these links on the pile just in case.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:30 AM on January 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

That Bluworm one is great (as are the Dangerous Puppets' puppets)!

I went looking for a version of it auf Deutsch, which I learned a bazillion years ago and have been unable to forget

That'll be either Der Jammerwoch or Der Zipferlake (jazz version by Elisa Day).

This sent me down a, erm, rabbit hole - some other interesting versions out there...

- Terence McKenna's trippy reading

- David Zucker's mimed performance

- a British eccentric by candlelight

- an American eccentric, with cigar

- actor Michael Haynes' atmospheric rendition

- in ASL by Joe Velez, Crom Saunders, and Eric Malzkuhn

- in BSL by Matt Jenkins

- Steve Couch's animation of Tenniel's illustrations

- Oliver Hyman's marionette theatre

- Pizurny and Mass's mirrored and backwards music video

- Ray Gunn's erotic-demonic circus act

- Joseph Bourdeau's theatric timpani piece
posted by progosk at 9:19 AM on January 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

YouTube has failed me; I can't find a copy of the Renfaire and filk traditional version of Jabberwocky sung to the tune of Greensleeves.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:45 AM on January 20, 2018

I adore Svankmajer, and his Jabberwocky is a delight. (A deranged delight, but a delight nonetheless.)

This post and its comments make me gyre and gimble, although there's no wabe anywhere near here.
posted by mkhall at 3:43 PM on January 20, 2018

Metafilter, best of the wabe.
posted by progosk at 4:43 AM on January 21, 2018 [3 favorites]