From Slave to Court Favorite — Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver is nearly worked to death. The more his master earns from showing him, the greedier the farmer grows; Gulliver loses his appetite and wastes away to a skeleton. The farmer, expecting him to die soon, decides to squeeze out one last profit. While he is calculating, a gentleman, usher arrives from court with orders to bring Gulliver immediately for the queen and her ladies, who have already heard reports of his beauty, manners, and wit. Her majesty is delighted. Gulliver kneels to kiss her foot; she offers her little finger instead. She asks whether he could live at court. He answers that he is his master's slave, but if he were free he would devote his life to her service. She asks the farmer to sell him; the farmer, sure Gulliver has only weeks left, demands a thousand pieces of gold and gets paid on the spot. Gulliver asks that Glumdalclitch be brought to court as his nurse; the queen agrees, the farmer is glad his daughter is promoted, and Glumdalclitch can barely hide her joy. The farmer leaves with a farewell about good service; Gulliver gives him only a slight bow. When the queen asks why, Gulliver tells her plainly that his only debt is that the farmer did not dash out his brains when he found him in a field, a debt already paid by the tour through half the kingdom and the price she paid today. If the farmer had not thought him dying, she would not have got so cheap a bargain. The queen carries him to the king's cabinet. His majesty, grave and austere, first takes him for a splacnuck lying in her hand. When Gulliver stands and speaks, the king suspects clockwork or a rehearsed sales trick taught by the farmer. He sends for three court scholars. After magnifying his teeth and beard, they decide he cannot be natural: too weak to survive, too small to be a dwarf, finally only relplum scalcath, a freak of nature, the modern European answer to every mystery. Gulliver begs to answer: he comes from a country of millions at his own stature, where houses, trees, and animals match. The scholars smile and say the farmer taught him his lesson. The king, sharper than they are, sends for the farmer, compares the accounts, and begins to believe. He orders Glumdalclitch to keep tending Gulliver and has a cabinet, maker build a wooden chamber sixteen feet square and twelve high, with sash windows, a hinged ceiling for bedding, quilted walls against jolts, a lock against rats, and silk clothes thin as blankets. The queen will not dine without him. He eats at a miniature table on her left elbow while Glumdalclitch stands on a stool; her majesty amuses herself by watching him carve meat she could swallow in one bite, along with bread the size of two loaves and knives like scythes. On Wednesday royal dinners the king questions Gulliver about Europe's manners, religion, laws, and wars. Gulliver grows too proud and too detailed about England's trade, schisms, and parties. The king picks him up, strokes him after laughing, and asks whether he is whig or tory. To his minister he says human grandeur is contemptible when mimicked by such insects: they have titles, build burrows they call cities, dress, love, fight, dispute, cheat, and betray. Gulliver flushes with rage at hearing Britain called the mistress of arts and arms treated so lightly, but he cannot resent what he cannot punish. After months among giants, he begins to doubt whether he was injured at all; in a mirror beside the queen he looks ridiculous enough to laugh at English lords strutting in birthday clothes. The queen's dwarf, once the smallest favorite at court, bullies him out of jealousy: swaggering past, trading insults, dropping him into a silver bowl of cream at dinner, and wedging him upside down in a marrow bone when Glumdalclitch steps away. The dwarf is whipped, forced to drink the cream, and soon given away to a great lady; Gulliver is relieved. Flies as big as larks torment him at meals; the dwarf releases them under his nose until Gulliver learns to slice them in midair. One morning more than twenty wasps, each as large as a partridge, storm his breakfast cake through an open window. He kills four with his hanger, keeps their inch, and, a, half stings as curiosities, and later gives three to Gresham College. Rescue has brought comfort, audience, and protection; it has not restored equality or pride.