| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
| |
| |
| NUMBER: | 10651 |
| QUOTATION: | ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mismy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898), British author, mathematician. Jabberwocky (poem) in Through the Looking-Glass, “Looking-Glass House,” (1872).
This opening stanza of Carroll’s nonsense poem first appeared in a private periodical which he wrote and illustrated in 1855, aged 23. Calling it a “stanza of Anglo-Saxon poetry,” Carroll interpreted the words and gave the literal “translation” as follows: “It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side; all unhappy were the parrots; and the grave turtles squeaked out.” (The Annotated Alice, ed. Martin Gardner, 1960). |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia. |
| |
| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
|
|
