Kitabı oku: «Gulliver's Travels. A Voyage to Lilliput. A2 / Путешествия Гулливера. Гулливер в стране лилипутов», sayfa 13

Chapter III

The author tells about how Lilliput spend their time. He shows the emperor sometricks. The author can go free with some rules to follow.

In a short time, I started thinking about running away again: the emperor and his people really liked my kindness and how well I behaved. I did all that I could to make them believe that I'm not dangerous, and it worked. I sometimes lay down, and let five or six of them dance on my hand and play with me. I made good progress in understanding and speaking the language. The emperor organised some shows for me; I enjoyed them and liked the dancers, who walked on athread most of all.

It turned out that the only people who do this dance are ministers or future ministers. They are not always well-educated, however, theytrain to dance on the rope from childhood. Many people want to be in their place, because this job is very respected: when one of the ministers dies or falls ill, five or six of those candidates come to the emperor and ask to take their places. The candidate needs to jump highest and perform the most dangerous tricks to get the place. It often happens that candidates get traumas. However, it's much more dangerous when the working ministers start doing that: they can only win against each other so their jumps and tricks have to be more and more difficult each time. They told me that Flimnap, my friend, was in danger two years before my arrival, but the pillow on the floor helped him to stay safe.