Just fun today: Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky read by Benedict Cumberbatch

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Jabberwocky

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

– Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), the pen name of Oxford mathematician, logician, photographer and author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is famous the world over for his fantastic classics Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, Jabberwocky, and Sylvie and Bruno.

Ruth Jewell (A Quite Walk), a core team member of The Bardo Group Beguines found this delightful reading of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem read beautifully by actor Benedict Cumberbatch. The poem is from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), which is the sequel to Alice in Wonderland (1865). The illustration is from the book and was done by Sir John Tenniel.